Nostalgia: Matalom, Leyte

It would have been the classic tragedy of all tragedies, had I stayed and been staked firmly into your ground, and killed a dream, forever. I would have been more quiet and still than the already quiet town that it was. I would not have seen, heard, and known what I should have and what I should have not. The parting, truly, just made all the difference. 

Had I not bitterly bidden you farewell, the towers I would have only known then were the guava-rich rolling hills, home to fighting spiders of all colors, cocooning inside the deadest and driest of all leaves; the melancholic, yet itchy bamboos, swaying and rustling against the breaths of distant mountains; the three-meter pole to which I would hold my chin up high, with squinted, sleepy eyes, during endless 8 a.m. flag ceremonies, singing the national anthem and reciting the pledge of allegiance; the lofty coconut trees, the trees of life, rising from our backyard with harvest-ready tomatoes and bell peppers rooted to garden beds gorging on carabao dung, and living on Canigao island, white and lonely and the purest of all virgins imaginable, shy and meek; the wooden power posts, greened by algae, pestered by accidental mushrooms, and nested by jet-black crows in holed heads; the two-storey, corrupt municipal hall dressed in cracked paint, leaving texts unintelligible, useless; and the centuries-old Saint Joseph church that stood high through the sweat and blood and tears of those who labored hard under the tropical sun disguised as Spanish crown. 

But the things I knew, I have grown up and smiled and laughed with them sealed in between my throbbing temples since the time of our bitter parting, welcoming wherever the world takes me. I have always reminisced our memories, good and bad, immortalized in shameless, old-school diaries kept inside shoe boxes, shunted from dust. Those were sweet and tangy-smelling every time I recall my youth and playground at every possible square soil. I crave for it like the juiciest fruit known to man, and I sincerely apologize to you at the same time. There is a must in all things. And I must do what I had to, explaining and hoping you would understand. 

I called out your name one morning of my last young summer, but you didn't hear me. I saw you with a curious companion riding habal-habal (motorcycle-for-hire), as if on a chase -- swift, unmoved, indifferent. And clouds of dust rose above the choked up slender greens lining the roadsides, and my poor, sore, allergic nose, growing red and terribly sneezing. 

Still, if you asked me the same question on that fateful day today, I would answer the same and sail the same rough seas convoluted with uncertainties and heartbreaks -- even if it meant leaving you in the cold, again, you feeling betrayed, and me coming back after six full years. 

I bade you farewell, my Matalom, the second time, in the hope that you would be happy for me and wishing me well on this journey, even farther and longer and sleepless and uncertain and brokenhearted.

Images: 

Caridad Norte

Elevado

Hitoog Cave

Mahayahay Falls

Canigao Island

Colors in Motion: Sinulog Festival 2014

Stuffed with heavy breakfast of chicken adobo, pancit, escabeche, and rice at default, with a Lowepro bag strapped to my back and a Sinulog Festival ID hung from my neck for the very first time as a photo contest participant, I was in perpetual motion along Mango Avenue. I couldn't settle for inertia, and so did the rest. Hurried footsteps of onlookers, all headed to the roadsides and to skywalks, now shoulder to shoulder, and the mounting beats of drums and sounds of trumpets from the rope-barricaded Mardi Gras route already set the atmosphere in festive mood. A euphoric mask was on everybody's face, with some having paint all over. 

The fever had been switched on ever since earlier days on, pulsing our temples until it lasted. We screamed "Pit Señor!" 

It was a cold morning, thirty minutes past eight, and I was mindful of maneuvering my camera, capturing, at high speed, more than 30 graceful and colorful contingents from all over the country perform their dances or rituals to the rhythm of Sinulog, in honor of the Santo Niño de Cebu (Holy Child of Cebu), plus the towering higantes and puppets, and decorated floats. It had been drizzling from time to time - during lunchtime along Jones Avenue, late in the afternoon, and close to the end at around 7PM, but the spirits of performers, devotees, and those all-out-for-the-revelry alone never had dwindled, as they kept their adrenaline at the same heightened levels. Some may have been fried and burned under the sweltering heat, sandwiched between the thickening crowd from left and right, but they didn't seem to mind at all. Selfies with the contingents were in vogue. It was a beautiful chaos.

The festival culminated in a spectacular fireworks display at the Cebu City Sports Complex.

Despite failing to submit my photos, due to my hectic schedule as an OFW on vacation (I went to Boracay and Palawan two days after), the thought of experiencing Sinulog first-hand was more than enough for an amateur photographer like me. Wow, it was like having the best seat the whole day at the theatre! 

Sinulog Festival is an annual cultural event in Cebu City, which is touted to be the country's biggest and the grandest, and is celebrated every third Sunday of January.

 

Chasing Sheep

It is past midnight again, where a heightened sense of wakefulness gets repetitive and unwittingly long. At this very hour, I am sure of but one thing, that restlessness will be stretched out all throughout the olden night. It invariably happens to me whenever I oblige myself to finish reading a chapter or two of a good book -- a great escape from the day-to-day 8-hour cycle of labor -- until I lose the elusive sleep. Now I regret shrugging it off, for I have to impatiently await its revisit in the wee hours of dawn. 

The electric brain waves have not ebbed just yet, and the least I want is to have to open my eyes at such an ironic, unforgiving, inopportune time. 

The wind blows a slow chill at 16 degrees toward my conspicuous naked feet, which manage to crawl out of my thin blanket. The white lights from outside knife through the curtains, not helping in concealing everything, lifeless and breathing, in this room. Blackholes, after all, do not exist on earth. Even in a woman's jet-black locks, one may find a stray brown strand of hair, an outlier that triggers an itch. Pardon me of the utter nonsense. Why can't it all be painted black at night? 

I look up the headboard, following a wealth of visible spectrum past through the window. There goes the culprit. I wince at it. Is this the threshold of sleep deprivation? Or a wry humor? 

I can feel the quiet fanning of the AC, fixed up high at the side of the dull whitewashed wall devoid of anything artsy, hung or posted. Its soft mumbling turns into a lapping of the soles of my feet, rousing a gentle tickle not enough for them to retract, nor for me to curl up. I can endure it for hours, like a log, so long as hypothermia remains at bay. I love it, and it might lull me to dreamland, just maybe. 

But still, it does not help, and I cannot invoke sleep. Now it has become a luxury. Remorse is everywhere, when I should have seized it while it was on a high courting me to rest. The more I resist it, the more its spirit dwindles. I realize it is a sulking fellow, too, which will leave you alone furtively. Now I am running after its tail, and it is, perhaps, around the bush, stubbornly hiding. 

I finally reach for my phone at my bedside, switch it on, in hopes that writing about the luckless circumstance at this very hour will tire and let me fall asleep.

Image: Woodlands Waterfront Park, Singapore