Saturday
Evening Posts
January
17-23 Edition
A
Thousand Summers 2
I
love walking, it always clears my mind.
There
was a time I walked a dozen miles from the Tikling crossroads in Taytay, Rizal
to Sumulong Highway, overlooking the metropolis, in 2004. All the while, I was
singing Trav'lin' Boy by Paul Williams, whose music goes with me everywhere.
I
remember my 1996 idyllic countryside stroll to Calantipe village in Apalit, Pampanga
from Calantipay in Baliuag, Bulacan, where I stayed with someone who will
always be special to me.
One
of my trips that took me high was when I a young kid in 1991. I was then in
Morong, Rizal, in one of the high schools I went into. I made my mountainous
journey from Tanay to Siniloan in Laguna. Then to the woodcarving capital,
Paete, then to Santa Cruz, Liliw and other towns. Somehow I ended up in
Alabang, Muntinlupa, and little did I know that I would also live there.
Fast
forward to October 2012, still in Alabang, is one of the happiest periods of my
life. I was then a call center worker
bee in the campus-like Northgate Cyberpark. I was then living in CENA Village,
a 5 minute walk from the office, my route under the trees with grassy vacant
lots on both sides of the wide jogging lane behind Bellevue Hotel. It always
brings me back to U.P. Diliman. Good vibes! I had established my own personal
routine revolving around my vampire schedule.
I'd
go home at the birth of daylight, my mind playing Umagang Kayganda by Ray-An Fuentes
and Tillie Moreno and Al Jarreau' Mornin', and I would spend two hours, just
for me, before going to sleep. This is when I'd listen to music on headphones
and read.
Umagang
Kayganda
Mornin'
See
My Favorite Songs of Ray-An Fuentes and Al Jarreau
For
the first time in my life, I began giving time to me, giving myself permission
to be all I can be, free from the insecurity-driven obsession to please others.
That
was just last year. A year. Seems like a thousand summers.
November
came, and along with it is a chain of events that would make me see that there
is a Higher Power guiding me and that angels brought me to where ever I may end
up. It started the night before the morning when I'm supposed to enroll in a
gym after being touched to my soul after watching Finding Forrester on cable at
the office lounge.
Finding
Forrester
See
My Story On Finding Forrester
I
had been issued a memo because there was an apple on my workstation; it was
just there for my past-midnight lunch so I don't have to get it from my
knee-level locker. The memo was from my supervisor, whom I had seen in the past
eat burgers and rice meals at his station, on recommendation by the
power-tripping assistant sup who hates me because I don't suck up to her. For
me, a company that values hypocritical rules over common sense is not worthy of
loyalty. That slip of paper would affect my chances of getting the promotion I
was targeting. Suddenly, I lost the motivation to stay and move up; instead, I
wanted to move out.
Of
course, that was assuming I would survive the end of the world that coming
December.
To Be Continued Next Saturday
Trav'lin'
Boy
Paul
Williams
See
My Favorite Songs From Paul Williams
"I
won't say that I'll be back again,
'cause
time alone will tell,
So
no goodbyes for one just passing through,
but
one who'll always think of you..."
3 comments:
"Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag." ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home." ~ Matsuo Basho
Post a Comment