Apparition at our Balete tree

A day or two after I cut down the thumb-sized branches of the Balete tree,  Ja woke me up to see what hung from among the leaves in the morning of September 8. This was the amazing sight I saw.

It hung there unmoving for the entire day that Ja suspected it was already dead. "Butterflies die so fast," he said.

But it was not just an ordinary butterfly because it was five or 10 times as big. For three days, it hung there unmoving until it disappeared. As soon as Ja saw that it was no longer there, he went up the stairs to find if it was in Pa's old room. "Why did you do that?I asked Ja, who always saw some supernatural meaning to extraordinarily beautiful phenomenon. "Why did you have to check the moth's body upstairs?"  

"I was expecting to find a man with butterfly wings in the old man's room," he said.

Pruning the ailing durian tree

It was not exactly pruning--but the middle part of the durian tree near our house was rotting. I've been constantly looking up at it as Ja and I sit sipping coffee every morning since we arrived and settled here in Lower in April this year and I worried that there might be a strong wind that would cause that part of the tree to give in and land straight up on the roof of the house. So, I decided to ask our neighbor, a super climber named Nick, to cut the part of the tree above the rot, which was a considerable one. This is the second tree that I cut--or if you could call that prune--after we arrived. The first one was the part of the Lomboy tree that threatened to reach the electric wire. 

These experiences have given me valuable insights on how it is to live here, the attitude of people about trees, that extraordinary skill (and talent) to climb trees at such height, discovering snakes inside the rot and others that I could not bring myself to write yet. 

But here are some of the photos of this event in my life at Lower.

Walk with Ja at the turn of the year

 

Last Eight Days with X

I'm already looking forward to the day after X, to be free of X, at last! 

X has given me an umbrella in the last nine years, almost 10 years to be exact. He has protected me against storms, mostly financial ones; most of all, he  has protected me from Covid, at least, since he has given me a home, a roof over my head here in downtown Davao, in an area very accessible to everything that I and my family need so that we could not really feel the extent of the horror of the lockdown all throughout the pandemic. It was like living in a protective bubble. Although we are aware of the risks and the danger everywhere, we feel where we were a basic sense of safety. During the times when the outside world seemed to be going mad, we were able to retreat to our sense of safety, here in our bubble, thanks to X. 

X has also allowed me access to some privileges, reduced the fear and anxiety I've been carrying with me since childhood, protected me against the harshness and prejudices of fellowmen and women, etcetera, etcetera. It was because of X, or at least with the stability that X provided, that I was able to explore oil painting, watercolors, pastels and embarked on my journey to self-discovery. It was X who allowed me to travel, to find adventure in several places, to go wayward, sometimes, without adverse cost to myself.

Now, I'm saying goodbye to X. Because even if X was really a good provider, he was also ruthless, cruel, egocentric and rigid in his own beliefs. Through the years that I've been with X, X had never seen me. Or, is it right to say, he refused to see me. He has always treated me as invisible although through these years, I've been doing work for X. 

These are my last eight days with X. I can't describe yet how I feel. Excited by the prospect of my impending freedom? Afraid of losing all the privileges I used to enjoy? I'm supposed to write a goodbye letter to X but right now, I can't do it yet. I'm still trying to still myself, I'm still trying to console myself because I feel so broken.