Take a Time Out

 

Thank you, Lola Openg

I was trying to figure out where to get my baptismal certificate at the time when no one among the living could remember, or even had any knowledge, where I was baptised.  I cracked my mind trying to analyse the possibilities--by tracking down in my mind the movements of people I used to know. My Pa already passed away five years before, though, how I wish I could still ask him.  As soon as I asked Ma, she said, "Of course, you were baptised in Argao, where else would it be?"
Was it probable that I was baptised in the town where I grew up? Where to begin my search? Then, I remember this particular photo showing Lola Openg carrying an infant with those scandalously thick black hair.  I was quite sure that that infant was me because I had a memory of it being pointed to me by grownups. I used to be so embarrassed by the shocking black hair; though, right now that my hair is thinning, I've been wondering about that hair; how I failed to appreciate it while it was still around. I was always trying to hide it, tying it or having it straightened.  Lola Openg looked younger in the picture now, though, when I looked at it before, when I was much, much younger, Lola Openg was always old; way, way too old. 
I've always looked up to her as an extraordinary woman, not like any other woman I knew. She had strength and toughness of character. Her place in Balusong used to serve as a drop-off point of settlers arriving in Mindanao for the first time or those who had already settled here but were leaving back to their old Visayan hometowns. They always make it a point to sleep in Lola's house before they take their flights the following day; or before they go on a long bus trip to Nasipit or Cagayan de Oro where they would take the boat to Cebu. If Lola Openg had carried me that day I was baptised, then isn't that very likely that I was baptised in the city where she used to live? I still could not believe it. In my mind, I tried to scour the locations of churches closest to Lola's house and those closest to her heart. Everything pointed me to a particular cathedral. True enough, less than 15 minutes after I inquired, the venerable priest assistant handed me my records. Thank you so much, Lola Openg! 

I want you to stare

 

On the Road to Sister's heart

I travelled all the way from comfort zone to the strange land of Circe. No one could turn me into a pig, though. It was still January and the sun refused to appear in the horizon, so everything that I planned got canceled and set to an indefinite date in the future.

Trying very hard to heal

 I believe that a dip in seawater will heal me. You are not allowed to disagree.

Just a word of welcome

K asked, "So, what did you have for the New Year?" 

I knotted my brows because suddenly I can't  remember.  Take note that he said, "what did you have," not "what did you do" for the NY; which made me ask, "Is he being more materialistic?"

To focus on "having" and not on the "doing?" or perhaps, on the "feeling?" Is that what he got from communing more with his father's part of the family? Or, maybe, even with my other part of the family? Sometimes, I get the feeling that he is discarding me. 

"I can't remember because you were not there," I said as a way of explaining. He nodded. He belted another song. Belted. Finally, I found the word. He had learned how to belt a song without my knowing it. The first time that I heard him scaling the notes so well, I said, "Wow. Now I finally knew why it took you so long to finish Architecture." I paused, looking at his face for effect, before saying, "I think you went to another class, the videoke class." He laughed. "You're doing so well now that we can finally say we are a real Filipino family: we sing the videoke.  Ja and Sean - and perhaps JL, too - laughed. Ja took the microphone, which we brought all the way from home. The videoke staff had to agree when I said we had to bring our own microphone as part of our anti-COVID-19 measure. I simply needed to make sure because no one was certain yet whether or not we were already out of the pandemic. Ja filed at least five songs. He was having a concert. I was worried the rest of the company--all young people--might get bored.  Sean said it was okay.  Happy New Year!

 

I can't write

Ja went with me to the Island Garden City (where was the garden? where was the city?) because I was feeling really bad that day because of the news that I got from home that was no longer home for me.  We ended up taking a boat--because Ja had a mind of his own and his idea was totally different from my own. So, instead of getting relaxed just like the way you see it in the movies, I was so tense and grumpy because we had to go through the midday traffic, we had to line up at the tiny seven eleven to bring something to eat, we had to line up to get the tickets and when we did, we had to sandwich ourselves in between passengers in the fully-loaded boat. Then, I had to count how many life jackets there were above our heads because I always remember the stories that I edited about boats crossing over stormy waters.  There was nothing stormy about the sea, though. The storm was right inside me.

 

Cup Sawi

 

Energy landscape

Solar PV panels mounted on the rooftops of Ateneo de Davao University are changing the Davao city landscape and hopefully, the energy future of Mindanao.

 

Mirrors

Almost a decade after they installed the first solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the rooftops of the university buildings, engineers at the Ateneo de Davao University explore tapping another power from the sun: heat captured in this parabolic dish of the concentrated solar thermal power facility in Bangkal campus. Unlike PV cell that converts light into electricity, CSP uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight into its receiver to produce heat--which is then used to spin a turbine or power an engine to generate electricity. 

Harvesting the Sun

I was about to say, "Hey, do you have the feet of a butiki? Whatever happens to you will be my responsibility," but I knew he wouldn't listen, I knew how hard headed they all are, and I was thinking, not only of him but them, in general. I would only sound like a helpless schoolmarm, a subject of future conversations. And so, I restrained myself; I just stared and stayed there, taking photos.

Sikwate and Puto Maya

Two nights without getting a wink of sleep and I lapsed into a trance.  I loved it. I was stripped of all animal emotions (except fear and panic, which was what brought me to that state in the first place), but all in all, I was capable only of that and the higher emotions of love and longing for God to come and rescue me from my deadlines.  On the second day, when I finally saw the glimpse of a read back before the break of dawn, in between the unholy hours before the cock's crowing, I dragged Ja to the Bankerohan public market, where we had a hearty breakfast of sikwate and puto maya. 

What my desk looked like in November

 

I'll tell you all about it

 

But not tonight. Tonight, I still have to read, I still have to write, I still have to clean my copy of verbal flabs, garbage; I still have to clean my desk, I still have to untangle the tangled threads of my earphone. Threads because I could not remember the right word for it. I'm running out of words nowadays. Maybe, one day, I'll remember. I failed to take the picture of that tall ugly woman in a brown dress and with a bun hair-do, who thought she was young and pretty and she owned the world because she was a Filipina working for the Polish Embassy.  

Beautiful Balete at the Makati Circuit

Just to honor this old Balete tree inside the Makati Circuit where I used to jog every morning maybe five years or so ago because it's only recently that I recognised it to be a Balete tree.  I used to hover and stare at it when I went to take a look at the nearby Pasig river just a couple of steps away and those strange cargo boats passing by, I would turn around to find the tree, fascinated by its thick trunk that looked like roots or branches, wondering what it was, wanting to communicate to the tree because I, too, felt totally abandoned, cast off in that place. I wanted the tree to communicate to me and I never knew it was actually talking to me at that time and it's only now, years later, that I finally hear and understand.  I hope you thrive, beautiful Balete!

 

Old Baclaran Church

Where the tortured face of the crucified Christ hovering over devotees lighting candles  (not in the photo; I'm not supposed to photograph scenes like those) remind me of the face of my Pa as he was battling the advanced stage of adenocarcinoma. 

Then, it dawned on me that the Baclaran church was actually the church of the Mother of Perpetual Help, where part of the suffering humanity come to seek help in the midst of desperation. It was among the first churches in the country to speak up against ejk.

 

Stories old buildings tell

Ja and I were walking along Juna Subdivision on March 22, 2021 when we passed by this old SEC building which was abandoned since the series of quakes that hit this part of Mindanao in the last quarter of 2019. (I've been a sucker for abandoned buildings; the ghastlier they look, the better. Maybe, they remind me of myself, abandoned, neglected, forgotten). It felt like a long time ago when I first came here as a reporter wanting to interview the SEC director and thought this building a very imposing structure--with its white paint and all. 

But looking at its state as we emerged from the long pandemic lockdown, I thought it happened a century ago. 

Though, if you just study the timeline very closely, the series of quakes happened just a quarter before the discovery of a strange coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The news spread only in January 2020 although the disease already raged in that Chinese city in December 2019. So, in a sense, it was not that long ago.  The structure also looked like it was deserted for a hundred years instead of only two years or so. 

My desk during the pandemic

 

Myalgia

On October 13, Ja and I went round and round brisk walking at the Park that can't be named because I don't have the authority to speak its name. As usual, Ja wanted to be 12 steps ahead of me but I just happened to wear my best shoes at that time; so, he never succeeded. I always kept pace with him during the entirety of the walk. 

What made me like that particular walk was--Ja never talked. He was thinking deeply as our feet raced one after the other on the pavement, covering as much ground faster than my mind could perceive. I felt like the walk was a meditation of sort. 

The following week, we were back again at the park that can't be named, walking. But the next day, I woke up with a growing pain somewhere in my thighs that seemed to vanish everytime I moved. It was not pamaol. I developed a fever and was thinking, this might be how a fibromyalgia felt like (because I read about it months back and had no idea what it was). Then, Doc Jean told me, try if the paracetamol will take away the myalgia. Hah! Myalgia! Another Latin word to scare Ja! I used it as soon as I had the chance to talk to him.  After the doctor's visit, another Latin word to scare Ja with. The doctor said I had sciatica. What does it mean? Asked Ja. Just look it up, I said. I'm tired.

 

Love is a many splendored thing

I just came out of the coffee shop where I cracked my head over a story that refused to write when I happened to look up at the sky and see the colours. I never knew that it rained. I never knew that I already spent three hours on a story that refused to work. And when I looked up again, I caught a message on my phone, saying, Ma, I'm here, where are you?! 

It simply made my day.