She also cites the slabs of piedra china around the house and the wall of old red bricks in the den.

Where did this appreciation for the arts and antiquities come from? Carlson looks back to her growing-up years, watching her mum go to antique stores for fun. “She did have a collection of antique coffee and tea cups,” she notes. This interest grew because of her exposure to millennial cultures like China and India, where she and her husband Aubrey, also a diplomat, were posted.

“It’s nice when you move around every three to four years to take with you something meaningful from each place you’ve lived,” she says. In a private sitting room is a beautiful Ching Dynasty bed and other antiquities from China; baskets from Eswatini (formerly Swaziland); and a framed necklace from Kenya. Many more artefacts adorn the house, from its Luzon to its Visayas to its Mindanao. Carlson says she has to be judicious in her acquisitions. She’s veering away from big pieces like furniture and refocusing on small ones. “Even if I can ship everything back home, I will have a problem with where to put them. I will need a second house!” she says.

With an eye for spotting good art pieces and antiques, Carlson lamentably claims she has no artistic talents. She enjoys crafting, however, and takes pride in baking great gingerbread houses, decorating Christmas cookies, and painting Christmas ornaments. “I’m the oldest of four children. My parents were both teachers. I enjoyed what we used to call Home Economics and the design idea. We were a very close-knit Catholic family. But for a middle-class family in the United States, it was all about school and sports; there was little time for art classes,” she shares.

Read also: Why is International Women’s Day important?

She loves decorating around the house. Last year, she went all out and decorated for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, putting up seven Christmas trees. This February, she simply adorned a door with red décor.

Her Own Henry Higgins

In her many interviews, Ambassador Carlson frequently mentions how drawing a bad number for choosing courses at Rhodes College led her to a career in foreign service. When it was her turn to pick, all the courses she wanted had been taken. She ended up with Politics of Latin America and Lesser-Known Plays of Shakespeare just because they were available.

“The Shakespeare course did not change my life, but the one on Latin America [which also made sense as I had learnt Spanish by then] did because of my professor in that course,” she recalls. The professor was Dr David H Likes, who mentored Carlson “back before mentorship was a thing”. He told her about the Foreign Service exam, urging her to take it. “I didn’t even know about foreign service!” she exclaims. Dr Likes also encouraged her to get a full Georgetown graduate school scholarship. “I got the Masters but never finished the doctorate, much to my mother’s chagrin I think,” she continues. “My mother said one time after my first assignment, ‘Do you think you’ll ever go back and get your doctorate?’ I’m like, I have a job I love! Why would I do that?”

Through Dr Likes, Carlson had her first overseas experience. “I went to La Paz, Bolivia, between my junior and senior years. I was 20 years old, I guess.” She was to house sit for the family of a USAID officer who had graduated from her university a decade earlier. Dr Likes put them together. “So, I was house-sitting when the Luis Garcia Meza coup occurred. Tanks were going up and down the street!” she recalls. Instead of being scared, Carlson was inspired, realising that the foreign service was where she would like to build her career. “Not because of the tanks on the street, but I found it so interesting to see what motivates people, how people live, the different languages they use. The other peoples in the Andes Mountains and their culture greatly interested me, and I wondered what else the world can offer.”

This interest in seeing the world and getting to know other cultures hogged Carlson’s focus. Single in the first ten years in the foreign service, she went to the Dominican Republic, Kenya and Mozambique.

“Before I met Aubrey, I never wanted to marry or have kids. I thought, why would I do that? What is in it for me? Can I not just have meaningful relationships? Maybe I just saw that having a husband and kids was limiting. I still wanted to go places and do things. I was really enjoying my career. I wanted to see more places and learn more languages,” she confides.

When she returned to work at the State Department in Washington, she thought of marriage again and mellowed her stand somehow. “I said, if the right person came along, I would consider getting married,” she remembers. She was already 35, when Time and Newsweek both said the odds of getting married were the same as getting struck by lightning. Fate was kind. Over a game of bridge (they both play), she met Aubrey from Fort Worth, Texas. When he received an assignment in Beijing, he invited her to find a job there. “A consul in China? It never even crossed my mind!” she reacted. Then recapitulated, “On the other hand, there was this great guy…”

Now, they are living happily ever after with two beautiful daughters. “Things do tend to work out for good reasons,” Carlson believes. “So, I tell people, especially women, that sometimes you don’t know what you should want. Don’t be too rigid about what you think your life should be.”

Life as an Ambassador

Before her Philippine posting, Carlson was the chargé d’affaires in Buenos Aires through the pandemic years. On her new assignment to Manila, Carlson said she received nothing but positive feedback from friends and colleagues who have been assigned here—everything nice, except traffic.

A year and a half into her ambassadorship, Carlson assesses: “I found that all the superlatives, the accolades that I heard about the Philippines are even better than I expected. It was fortunate that I got here after the pandemic. Otherwise, I would have missed out on everything!”

As with other US ambassadors assigned here, her plate is also full. “We use the hashtag #FriendsPartnersAllies,” Carlson says. “On the Friends aspect, I’ve never been in a place with such meaningful connections because of our shared history, our shared sacrifice in the Second World War. The people-to-people ties are so strong. It makes it rewarding to build on those relationships.”

On the Partners aspect, she cites the Philippines as the home of the world’s oldest and longest-running American Chamber of Commerce. She also excitedly reports: “And we are bringing the Presidential Trade and Investment Mission headed by the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to the Philippines in the middle of March.”

Read also: US Embassy hosts a reception in honour of Ramon Magsaysay awardee Dr Bernadette J Madrid

The Allies aspect, of course, refers to our defence ties strengthened by more extensive military exercises through the Balikatan exercise and currently nine EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) locations in the country.

“And what makes working in the Philippines particularly rewarding is our shared values,” she says. “Our democracy is messy and chaotic, but we have real, genuine democracies. The elections here are crazy; the elections in the United States are different kinds of crazy. But our democracies are so much better than the alternative, right?”

She’s also pinned down her legacy: “After my tenure is over, I would love people to think about MaryKay Carlson as someone who built relationships of trust that mattered at a time when both our nations had a lot at stake. And that those trust relationships enabled us to advance our interests in line with our common values.”

The commonality ends with karaoke.

Read also: US Embassy in the Philippines and Ayala Foundation’s Filipinas Heritage Library mount an immersive WWII exhibit

“Three-quarters of the time [before coming to the Philippines], people asked me: ‘Well, what’s your song?’” she relates. At first, I did not know what they meant because even though I had spent a lot of time in Asia, I had never sung karaoke. “I like music, but had never been much of a singer.”

Fortunately, she has found a go-to song: Louis Armstrong’s A Kiss to Build a Dream On. “I picked it because it has a range that is not difficult. It also has a long interlude in the middle for me to cajole someone to do a few twirls with me. I love to dance!” she shares, huskily belting out a bar ala Armstrong.

After the preening and the primping for the pictorial, she settles down in the den with a glass of Chardonnay. Carlson remembers the bad lottery number she drew way back in college. Perhaps images begin to flash by—of countries she’s been to, of Aubrey whom she describes as a great diplomat but an even better husband and father, of the many relationships she’s built in the Philippines. And she declares: “Now I can say I ended up with the best lottery number.”

NOW READ

Modern-Day Diplomat: Get to know Laure Beaufils, the British ambassador to the Philippines

Malacañan honours Filipino designers in this year’s celebration of Philippine Independence

Introducing the UNA Collection: Paul Cabral’s first fashion show to come this February 27