Story that refuses to write

I am about to finish the story that I failed to write. It's so difficult.

Trip to Upper

I won't tell you where Upper is, but it's my beloved rainforest. When I got there, all I could hear was Jimmy saying, look at the clouds, there's nothing there, anymore, look, look! So, I looked up and saw clear, blue sky, the clouds had been carried away somewhere. It was very hot, the grasses had browned, the dust rose to one's nostrils and the wind was curiously stronger than usual. I could see the coconut trees straining to its onslaught. Was it really this windy here before? I asked myself but couldn't remember this kind of wind slamming my face, pushing the leaves to curl and branches of trees to sway. Jimmy said, grabe kahangin! 

When I turned around to the small trees I planted months ago, I noticed the Mindanao Eucalyptus dancing. No, maybe, it was not dancing. It was just trying to accommodate the wind. "The many things that the tree does to battle the forces of nature, an architect once told me. The many things the tree will do to keep its balance. I saw it in the Mindanao Eucalyptus tree dancing. I was afraid it was already straining itself to the limit. Is this already part of the ill effects of the El Niño? I asked myself and decided to look it up as soon as I get back to my life in the virtual world.

That conversation with my father

I posted this on social media, exactly three months after we brought him to the hospital and we grappled for the first time with the seriousness of his condition. By this time, he must have already been staying with me somewhere in Novatierra; or, was he already taken to that rented room in Ecoland? I could no longer remember exactly. I only knew the days during this time had bled unto each other, I could no longer tell when one ended and the other one began as I precariously struggled to eke a living, while at the same time, trying to face up to that reality that was Pa. 
But I took this picture some time in October 2012 or 2013, when he was still relatively strong. I decided to post this here because that conversation I had with him the night before was probably the last sane conversation I had with him. Perhaps, it was the only conversation in my entire life when I told him what was on my mind (or my heart, actually); what I've been longing to do for a long time; but which I never got the courage (or the time, the resources) to start:

July 1, 2015. He was still strong when I left home to take these pictures. He walked three kilometers, looking for me, thinking that I had gone away to the farm. He did not know I was only crouched in a neighboring ricefield; so, when months ago, I first saw him being wheeled to the x-ray room unable to get up, I looked back to this particular day, when he walked three kilometers looking for me; and when he did not find me, he walked back another three kilometers to the house; and I said, wow, Pa, you're still strong to cover all that distance in one morning!

Timber Dreams

That night, I told him how I dreamed of planting timber trees.  

“I want to plant timber, Pa, I want to collect them all,” I said, “I will cover the land with molave, Philippine teak, dipterocarp, Philippine mahogany, even the old lauans which used to thrive here.”

I told him how I loved indigenous trees and had already befriended someone who knew where I can source the Red Lauan.  I said I knew where I can find the seedlings of Ilang Ilang and all kinds of trees, including what other people think are useless ones. I said there is no such thing as a useless tree. I’ve been hunting for a tree called Makuno, or Ironwood, which an environment director once described to me as a wood so hard it could replace real iron needed for an important part of a ship engine; and in one area hit by a landslide, people talked about the fall of an old ironwood tree, which caused the number of the dead to swell. There, people began to fear an ironwood as they feared something evil but I figured out, the ironwood was only getting back what had been taken from the environment. After years of neglect and abuse, the soil where the ironwood stood, had loosened; causing it to fall.

I remember Pa beaming with excitement. In the morning, I had set out with my camera.  I found him sitting in the sofa and I said, I’m going outside to take some pictures, are you going with me, Pa? He smiled. I must have sensed him wanting to go.  I must have seen something in his eyes. But I only planned to go somewhere near the rice fields, where for an hour or so, I lay crouched under a rectangular trellis, the one used perhaps for ampalaya or upo or other crawling vine, which was not there anymore.  

I was trying to compose a picture, experimenting with different angles, while a farmer or two had passed me by, wondering what I was doing there. 

When I went back to the house, someone from the farm had been calling on my phone. “Are you coming? Your Pa is here, looking for you.”

He expected me to go to the farm.

He must have been excited by my dream to plant timber.  But my love for images, the impulse to capture the world through the lens of the camera, got in the way. 

Blurring Eyesight

That night, I told my Pa the only thing I strongly desire is simply to get my hands into the soil to plant some timber trees along the slopes of his farm. It has to be hard timber, but I don't care if it be soft. I particularly choose timber from the stories he used to tell me about how he arrived in our place when it was still a forest until the logging companies started felling down the gigantic trees. I was amazed that those gigantic trees have been in the place for nobody knows how long, nobody planted them there and yet, when the logging came, everybody acted as if they owned the land as far as they ca see, and went felling the trees, one by one, just like that! I told my Pa I wanted to see that forest and would start by planting a single tree, and then another and then another. But I can't seem to do it because in the city, something is pulling me out of myself, killing me. I did not tell this part to my Pa. I merely told him I wanted to plant trees desperately and would do it as soon as I get the chance. He did not appear surprised, which surprised me because my Pa has been very prone to violent mood swings. I never really got to the point of telling him I wanted to abandon everything right now just to be in some glorious nowhere. I am already very tired.