Sacred Hours in Patag

I had a most refreshing weekend in Patag when close AYLC friend Vain Shorts was “home.” He’s not from here but he has gained “amigos de Negros” through the years so he’s not averse to the idea of considering Negros as his second home. I could have missed it because of PLW Formation School but the boys, Politico del Republica Cantonal, Muzik Laban Boy and Good Boy Lindy, were gentlemanly enough to wait for me and leave at 7 PM.  They had to, because Vain Shorts and I had two years worth of psychoanalysis on the line!

Stars hang low

Up in the mountains, we camped out – okay, the most extreme we could do that night was spread banig and blankets at the rest house’s terrace.  It was a clear night and the stars hung low and numerous.  I began to whisper a quick thank you because it felt like my dreams were within reach. Vain Shorts said he had not seen stars nor heard birds for a long time, and that he had an app that played the sound of chirping birds, rustling bamboo, sea waves, croaking frogs. Goodness.

My Digital Manila mornings

Then I remembered my Manila mornings, only that there were no mornings in the Manila hustle, and roosters were digital.  I had gotten used to it for a time until I spent Holy Week at my uncle’s rest house in Tagaytay when I woke up to the real sound of birds, not the pseudo birds that squeak in meditation music. Real birds! I then realized that before that encounter I had been dead. If it weren’t for friends – friends I now pray I would never lose touch with despite the distance—I would’ve gone crazy, or I would’ve become terribly inauthentic (I didn’t love you or understand you that well then, Papa God.).

Simple joys

The mountain breeze lent a lilt to our conversations, the wine made these conversations soar endlessly, and the guitar inebriated our souls. I felt so whole and compact and thankful  that there was nothing I ever needed. I realized by morning, by the light of God’s morning on my face, that I had slept soundly at the terrace under the Universe’s watch.

Morning saw us again never running out of things to laugh about. We were like pails filled to the brim that even the corniest jokes would tickle and make us spill over.  Simple joys. But does this mean that we have shallow joys? I don’t mind. I don’t have to be cerebral about joy.

Sacred Half Hour

From time to time I would slip out for solitary moments. At 6 AM, while everyone was still asleep, I had my Sacred Half Hour in the midst of pine trees. It was a point of adoration, and I was on a high with Psalm 104. Thank you, Father!  When I got back it was over an hour later, but it felt like it was just 30 minutes! Only by grace!  The idyllic scenery was perfect and the book I had was “Brother Francis” so I had to excuse myself from the group many times to make the most of this communion.

Monday came, and I found myself doing the same in my own backyard.  With birds chirping, leaves rustling, the wind on my face. No digital simulation.

French Lessons by the sea

 

Sunny days are back so Mademoiselle Bia and I took our French lessons to Balaring, a strip of seafood restaurants in Silay City. It was noon on a Friday, and so Balaring was not blaring with videoke pollution.  We had the cottage all to ourselves – to our two giant selves— and I swear, I think I felt the cottage sway nervously after our long, languorous lunch of talaba, gambas, ginataang alimusan and kinilaw.  Earlier, I had thought of going for the safer, grilled food for my European guest. The last thing I wanted to see was Bia losing faith in local gastronomy, much like how she gagged after I let her try Indian mango with patis, sinamak and salt. But today she was feeling adventurous with her fruits de mer choices. It was a great lunch only that, we did not know what ginataang alimusan and kinilaw were in French.

We stuck to the basics like enriching my French vocabulary. Une fourchette, une cuillere, la nappe, . The next time I’m meeting her, I should be saying words in French, like hand me the forchette, sil vous plait. The conjugation can come later. I think, I’m trying to follow the natural progression of a baby learning how to talk. Words first, then the stringing into sentences a little later.  I loved how I felt like a baby again except that I was having a few beers with my teacher.  This was also a class where I found myself so different from how I would act in all the classes (across all types, fields, academic or otherwise)I had taken – I wasn’t a serious, conscious achiever this time, but a learner who would suggest – even demand— a nap. The weather was just perfect, and the crashing waves calmed the effervescence in our tummies and heads and lulled us to sleep.

It was time to go now. But the sea was irresistible. So the day got lazier, and dragged on oh so pleasurably while we sat on the seawall and just stared into the horizon.  There was so much poetry in the scenery that Bia burst into a French song. The French song sounded so familiar and nostalgic but it did not transport me to a time I had in France or Belgium or the EDSA Shrine with the French priest. It brought me back to my childhood, until the magic wore off and it all became a prank on my sentimental self. It was nothing else but Under the Sea. Yes, Under the Sea, not any other song with the Provencal feel or the Charlotte Gainsbourg rasp.  But oh well, I conceded until we were singing a whole Disney repertoire till the sun dimmed.

Oh Disney. I never realized until that afternoon that it could be a great unifier, too.

 

An illustration of Negrense Prejudice

One day, my two Belgian guests and I were preparing for our friend’s wedding. We had planned to have our hair done at an inexpensive salon after their noon-day swim at the Chalet. Since we were pressed for time, we decided to change into our wedding clothes — just laid back white dresses, thank goodness — at the Chalet. The salon where we had reservations was a good three blocks away from the hotel, so I asked them, “Would you prefer to take a cab or walk to the salon?”

Clotilde, my Belgian friend who knows Bacolod like the palm of her hand, replied, “We walk, we can’t afford to wait.”

“Yes, I prefer to walk, too, because it’s like, only forty steps away, so let’s go,” I said. But my small, shrill Negrense voice, screamed “uhm, hello, Mormon elders in white? Lacson street at noon? Social Faux Pas!”

So I asked again, victim of a sudden shift from simplicity school student, to insecure Bank striver: “You don’t mind walking? I mean, us three, in white…along the main street?”

Gaetane, Clotilde’s mother, a woman of noble, colonial roots, wondered, “Why, is there a problem with that?”

******

A day after this promenade to the salon, I got a call from another friend: “Why were you walking down Lacson in your white uniforms? You looked funny! I was honking at you. You should have asked me to drive you to where you were going!”

I would have wanted to do the Gaetane on her –why, what’s the problem — but, ahhh, there goes my Negrense friend. 🙂