Saturday, June 27, 2015

A Thousand Summers (Episode 15)



Saturday Evening Posts
June 27 to July 3 Edition

A Thousand Summers

Episode 15

We landed in Samar. A passenger got down in Calbayog, the hometown of the girl I almost legally married when I was nineteen.

Beside my window at that moment was a wooden balag, a make-shift structure where vegetable vines would climb towards the sun, like the one I clumsily but happily built in 2003 when I stayed on a farm in Marilao, Bulacan–where I also encountered a real aswang vampire.

As we cruised down the sea-side highway from Allen, poignant scenes of sloping rice fields, pre-War nipa huts and isolated tombs seared themselves in my memory under the cleansing, melancholic rain.

I crossed the magnificent San Juanico Bridge at exactly 4:06 p.m., February 9, 2013, Saturday, leaving Samar and going over to Tacloban. Just like the war hero Douglas MacArthur, I got my own Leyte Landing.

To Be Continued Next Saturday


Jonathan Aquino's Journals

April 2, 2015, Wednesday

Respect is not a birth right. It is not a gift from Mother Nature like air and water and trees. Respect is something you must prove worthy of.

I believe that it is the moral obligation of each and everyone of us to earn the respect of our fellowmen.

If you want people to respect you, show them that you deserve it. If you want people to be loyal to you, show them that you deserve their loyalty. It really is that simple. Simplicity is the heart of wisdom.

Respect
Aretha Franklin


"R - E - S - P - E - C - T,
find out what it means to me..."


3 comments:

Jonathan Aquino said...

Dawn was slowly breaking as I walked under the trees in the forest-like open field at the end of I.T. Park in Cebu. I was trying to empty my mind to just enjoy the moment. I yearn for the sense of wholeness that comes from being close to nature. When I feel that inexplicable calm, my mind would play "What Matters Most" by Kenny Rankin. ~ Huggybear Diaries, June 10, 2015, Wednesday

Jonathan Aquino said...

I just watched Star Trek: Into The Darkness. Kirk is one of my favorite movie characters: someone who does what is right even if goes against the rules that other people follow without question. While my continuing quest for supreme cool headedness is inspired by Spock's self-control, it is from Kirk that I have learned what true leadership is, more than almost all of the managers, supervisors and trainers I've encountered in the so-called real life. ~ Huggybear Diaries, June 20, 2015, Saturday

Jonathan Aquino said...

"I met you on a springtime day, you were minding your life and I was minding mine too. Lady, when you looked my way, I had a strange sensation and Darling, that's when I knew..." ~ England Dan & John Ford Coley, Sad To Belong