there's always next time

I actually feared the specters that loomed in that trip. Last Saturday, I brought myself back to Dumaguete City for the graduation rites of some people whose roots of relevance branch within me, inching deeper in each moment of recollection. My excuse would be “I had to be there.” But of course, it was more than an excuse, more than wanderlust.

They were there in the afternoon when I walked the stage in my toga, too, like cheerleaders who had missed a game and went hollering amongst the crowd of beaming parents on commencement day instead. One drummer from the marching band even banged his drum wildly to the ire of his lead conductor. Just a few steps away from them were my mother, my father, and my three sisters. It was a scene plucked out from a sappy movie.

All these were happening with the great peak of Mount Talinis and Silliman Church guarding behind us, the Rizal Boulevard embracing water right in front of us, and the sun slowly dipping into a horizon that forgot it should separate sea and sky.

Who could not remember? Not even Dumaguete’s strongest rhum could not knock it off my memory.

And yes, memory, the purveyor of the specters mentioned earlier. The requisite ghosts. These are those that manifest after we’ve been through anything (if not everything), soon to be forgotten, only to be relived again with the slightest push of remembrance. The impact will be lasting, whether we like it or not.

Suddenly it was my college acquaintances’ and dearest loves’ turn. The graduates were Donna Amethyst Bernardo, Phillippe Antoni Credo, Ian Rosales Casocot, Gabriel Pestelos, Ayla Calumpang, Julian Torralba, Judy Gay Jandayan, Aris Ramiro, Urich Calumpang just to name a few. It was their turn to face the impact.

I knew from the start that the whole four-day break would be one joyful escapade, but something behind that gloss, a little bit more denied than accepted, was the thought that this would also be heartbreaking. Something worse than hangover.

Why does it have to be this way? How will we see this little city in the south without the predictable, familiar faces? When will we ever meet again? What will be the changes? Who are we returning to next time? Will there be even next time?

It was funny finding ourselves treading uncertainty again. After all these years, we remain stumped and in awe at vagueness of reaching another phase. It’s like a blur in our foresight, as if the only clear thing in our heads is the question, “What’s next?”

Following this four-day break, we will venture onto our own separate ways. But after all these years, I stand by what I have said before. Separation is necessary. To the things you love, to the ones you love.

We couldn’t have enjoyed those meals together in new and all-time favorite restaurants, those morning-the-night revelries in watering holes, those marathon conversations, that three-hour stay in Siquijor, those picture-taking sessions that attempt to frame in images what needs to be preserved, that commencement ceremony itself, that hour-long trip to Tanjay, that “Liwayway Pose” that presented itself out of nowhere, that Twitter hashtag “#ReturnOfTheStars,” those small familial reunions, those big spontaneous gatherings, those fleeting smiles and greetings and many more if not for the heightened absence we have felt beforehand.


Though last minute bad news was received before graduation day, though there were ties that remain broken within the circle, though there were places never visited for fear of meeting past loves, though there were past loves that suddenly persisted in the present, though there were personal announcements withheld to prevent changing the courses of other people’s short-term happiness, we just moved on. The acacias and the boulevard are testaments of endurance.

We may be all victims of the consequences of distance, but this is what makes loving and longing flourish in this city. Maybe next time, our laughter would be louder, our smiles wider, our understanding for each other wiser.

For the new graduates? I guess what matters now are the clinks of glasses and bottles, the shared feeling of accomplishment, the galvanic bliss of it all. We cannot deny them this triumph. They deserve it.

So let us worry on another day. For now, we just have to be happy, have faith that everything will be all right. Until next time.

it's good to have you with us

Many have waxed poetic about Dumaguete, buffing nostalgia into new sheen, romanticizing the past and recently folded present. But who could blame those who have orchestrated them, which actually include me, us and many more, bearing thoughts and experiences from having walked its streets at ungodly hours over and over again for four, five or so years? It is hard to explain, but please forgive us. “To ignore complexity/ is to question the generosity of the sky.”

That is why tomorrow, just as the sun would drain its one o’clock light in the afternoon, I would find myself standing on that city again, breathing in its spirit, to attend my closest acquaintances’ commencement ceremony. Silliman University would be a flurry of smiles (and booze-induced carousing) again. The thought of this alone works like a drug.

And just a few hours ago, that very same drug has conspired with the naughty fates of the day. When I turned on the music player this morning, the sound of piano and spoken word gradually filling my ears, I realized I found the perfect song for this year’s graduates. Especially those graduates that I know of.

*

Exitlude
The Killers

Aggressively we all defend the role we play
Regrettably time’s come to send you on your way
We’ve seen it all bonfires of trust flash floods of pain
It doesn’t really matter don’t you worry it’ll all work out
No it doesn’t even matter don’t you worry what it’s all about
We hope you enjoyed your stay
It’s good to have you with us, even if it’s just for the day
We hope you enjoyed your stay
Outside the sun is shining, seems like heaven ain’t far away
It’s good to have you with us
Even if it’s just for the day
It’s good to have you with us even if it’s just for the day
Outside the sun is shining, seems like heaven ain’t far away
It’s good to have you with us.
Even if it’s just for the day
It’s good to have you with us even if it’s just for the day
Outside the sun is shining, seems like heaven ain’t far away

reverberating

“Two weeks before graduation, after taking all your final exams, you walk around the campus prematurely saying goodbye to the ghosts you will leave behind. That’s how sentimental you are….

So you walk around waiting for graduation, feeling empty while contemplating the bare crowns of the acacias. After four years in school, you ask yourself, what have you learned? Nothing, comes the humble reply….

The memories threaten to overwhelm you as you say goodbye to the old school, your mind melodramatically rushing up to meet another leaf-falling season. You have to have a sad tale to tell to go with the dreary music in your head even as the leaves come falling down on your head. Adagio, the heart says, but the mind vehemently denies: no, no, you were not—never—lonely here. And still the leaves rain down on you like music fit to commit suicide in.”

-excerpt from Timonthy Montes’ essay,
“Silliman in the Eighties: Of That Time, Second Person”

job hunting

This morning, I attended my first job fair. No matter how hard I try to avoid, I got to witness spunky PR members from various call center companies luring the innocent young minds of soon-to-be graduates. Oh, the nowhere accents of the sent agents just filled the waiting area. I did not particularly know why but my hands got clammy. It must be the summer heat that challenged everybody’s deodorant. Or something that I ate hours ago. Or it must be something else; something like the very first day I reported the different types of hog in front of a class back in elementary.

Fast forward to 9o’clock this morning, I suddenly found myself staring at a tarpaulin, a bunch of résumés at hand, and said to my companion: “it was really fast, noh?” All I got was a nod from him. Indeed, time went by in lightning speed that I was already reading one of the qualifications printed in the tarpaulin if I am willing to be assigned in different places across the country. Wow, when was the last time I stared or read at such notice? I cannot even remember.

At the same spot where I was sitting, I felt sad that I wouldn’t be reporting about the different types of hog any longer but would be facing a lot of its kind in a workplace someday. And I meant “sad” in the truest sense of the word. Work? Me, work? Jumping bullfrogs, I imagined I would be lounging by the beach, a glass of four seasons beside me, trying to get a tan while reading a book that’s not endorsed by Oprah!

It just dawned upon me that school ended—well, officially for us graduating students—but what’s next? Why was I attending this fair when I had already decided to rest, completely rest, for a month that would hopefully not become into five months? I do not know. I submitted two résumés to two hungry job employers and left.

As of the moment, what really matters to me is that on Sunday, March 22, I will be walking down the lane with something Latin called out with my name. Thank goodness, I made it.

skeletal

This is not how I look for this brand new year. Actually, it’s the opposite. What is skeletal right now is this paper that I have been trying to work on for the past months. In a few hours, I’ll be back in Dumaguete to face three more months of sharpening and head-knocking before plunging into doom, I mean, plunging into the oh-so “liberating” world of employment. If my paper remains to look like this, I’d probably escape the fate that I might fall in. Good thing? No.

While Rico Blanco is busily screaming about crabs and mechanical rabbits from hell which is then followed by Gnarls Barkley suggesting everyone to run away, I just can’t seem to pull everything in and make a coherent thought out of the chaos floating in my mind. And wait. Never blame Rico and Gnarls for the malnutrition of my project, a project that I must finish before the month of Valentines, because I work more efficiently with noise. For a sole creative writing major in a big university, whose classmates never go beyond the number of seven, it is seriously what I need.

___________________________________________________________________

the last sembreak, maybe

"I thought it will always be that easy,

rolling up the clothes, deciding the needs,

and packing the rest lightly,

but upon carrying the luggage one noon,

in every step, the load became heavier and heavier

that the whole trip made me ache in pain."
Oct 11 / 08 (02:16pm)

Someone just gave me a strong blow on the head. There was no bleeding, don’t worry. “This could be your last sembreak,” she said before I left Dumaguete to go back to Tagbilaran. Pausing for a while, her words seeped into my rational coconut. My goodness, she could be right. If all arrows point to that path everyone seemed to be so jittery and excited about, yes, this could be my very last.

Four years. That’s how long I’ve been living the life of a student meeting different people matched with different eccentricities. To me, these years are categorized in two sets: first is the Turtle-Slow Years and second the Fickle-Fast Years. The basics here is that the first set makes one to take things in perspective the overachieving way but tends to look at time to be so sluggish he or she ends up bored. The second part is the exact opposite. One just takes everything so lightly that an “INC” in a grade form is but a brush on the shoulder, a speck of dirt on the shoe. As long as it is done in the near end, everything’s just fine. Aside from that fact, days will just pass like a minute or so. One will just be surprised it’s the final examinations. And of course, the anticipated break follows. But this time, I am starting to doubt if I wanted this vacation.

Looking back, the trail I’ve made in the university is quite, shockingly, interesting. I have metamorphosed into various forms not known to many acquaintances. From a 3rd floor library bug, a student nurse shadow, a constant all-around competition contender, a radical regional organization leader, a lonely Creative Writing major drowning in the shadows of Katipunan Hall, a College of Mass Communication honorary member, to a broken piece of emotional apparatus and a features editor for two consecutive years, I can say that I’ve accepted a wide array of roles many would not like to take.

It is just oh-so fortunate that along the way, in the path mentioned earlier, I’ve met a few strangers that somehow possessed the same line of thinking that I had. Some joined in the stroll, had an animated chat, and left. Some even took the extra mile of carrying my things but, sad to say, the moves were just for show. Some remained and learned the way I walk that they’d run with me when I run for fun, jog in place with me when I jog in place to build up the mood, and rest on a bench when I rest on a bench for a much needed rest. In the coming days, though it’s too early to say, I put my hopes on solid anchor that all the people who I consider my “special” acquaintances will sit on the bench with me whether I am on sembreak or not.

Hope to see you soon, bullfrogs! Keep on hopping.

_________________________________________________________

togas

The truth is we were not exactly sure the real event would grant us to wear these gowns on March. We were not sure if these covered the goosebumps on our skin. We were not even sure if those smiling eyes and grins had totally mantled our confusing desperation to finally flee from the university’s portals or our thoughts of leaving some newfound acquaintances that made for themselves a unique corner in our rooms’ existence. Most of the time, we were like suspended from a ceiling that waited for any form of push in order for us to swing and have its much needed momentum. Well, this is just me speaking. I don’t really know but what’s definite is that it just felt weird wearing those things.