Monday, May 30, 2005

EVERYBODY'S CHANGING

I have forgotten how it felt to not know where I am. Just a few minutes before, I was home, in the company of friends and love. I just showered, so my hair’s still damp. Then as the plane is landing, I feel the tiny bubbles of air filling up at the back of my neck, slowly crawling upwards to the top of my head. It feels like they’re about to explode and I feel like I’m dying. The idea is so laughable. To leave for a new city for new opportunities, then die of bursting veins during the flight. (I’ll worse than Alanis Morisette’s 98-year-old man.) On landing, my hair’s still damp. But it’s a whole new thing and all I could say was, “What the hell am I doing?! It’s 7 in the morning and who am I to meet?” I left behind all those who want to see me, at that moment, to see this person who didn’t even know who I was. How stubborn my hair is and how I just hate it so much. How I didn’t look like this before. How I always complain about just about anything. How I love going out with friends. How I love sleeping. I’m meeting a stranger.

I don’t really know if I ever felt this way before. There’s this familiar feeling. The feeling of not knowing. How frustrating it is for me – someone who could practically be a Manila taxi driver – to turn right and get lost just going back to the hotel. There are these tricycabs (I forgot how they’re called exactly). Strange. They remind me of tricycles and jeepneys both at the same time. All I want is to see that old, common tricycle. I’m being stubborn, yes. I think I’d rather have coasters and jets here just to knock me off my senses by saying: HELLO!!!! You’re not home. Why does everything have to be seemingly the same but not? I get confused. I don’t know if I’m awestruck or homesick, staring at those tricycabs (?). I might as well know for sure, it lessens the randomness of everything.

It’s so sad. To stroll down the beach, alone, amidst strangers. To start looking for a new place to move in, when home is just waiting for me. To wake up and know that there’s no one to look forward to meeting. When everyday for three years what kept me going was knowing that I would see him that day. Or the day after. What’s saddest is that in this new place, there is nothing to remind me of him. There is no particular spot where I could remember a particular moment he was just right there. What I have are only wishful thoughts – that he would like this place, or that one, or that place they’re telling me about. I want to visit these places. I know it can be done. Everything is laid upon me. I have the car, the gas, the cash, the time, and darn it – even the perfect excuse. Just one reason not to go to that great place.

So when I see beautiful things outside my free will, I want to shut off all my senses. I don’t want to absorb anything new. I don’t want to start having fresh memories. What, now of the old? Will they, in time, be like my memory of my birthplace? So very vivid while I was there, but very gradually, without my knowing, I started to forget until I barely recall it now?

And on the radio all I hear are old songs and those Pinoy pop songs. I search for new song to remind me of the world where I came from, but I am being pulled back to this day, this place.

Posted by xam :: Monday, May 30, 2005 :: 0 Comments:

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