I was on a van on the way back.
rai
December 14. 2021
I was cackling with my other students. It’s my last day of the year being with them. Up to this day, I wonder why some of them fear the depths when they have the ocean everyday. But then again, it’s probably the same reason why most Filipinos don’t know how to swim- it’s not like we were constantly told nor made feel that the ocean was a home for us too.
Even if it was.
Even if it is.
It’s not like words were enough too.
Anyways, I’ve developed an easy relationship with them. Though my Bisaya has been broken from years of shame, I still communicate a little easy with them with a mix of Bisaya, Tagalog, telepathy, and vibes. Plus, we were talking language of the water anyways. I’ve grown grateful to them, and also honored to just teach somebody who doesn’t know how to swim.
Some of them really learned fast. They didn’t really need to be taught how to swim. Just how to not fear the water, or well, how to trust themselves and the water together.
Like Unog! He went from not desiring to swim in the middle to wanting me to constantly challenge him through games of throwing his googles and him getting it to show me a new record of speed everytime.
He’s one of my closest- he reminds me of Rocky as a kid. It’s easy for me to get along with eternally funny souls.
Actually one of the things he discovered he liked doing is standing on my shoulders and feeling like he was a superhero. Then, tumbling into the water while we all cheer and laugh.
So there I was, doing the same thing.
For some reason a lot of other people volunteered today. Some tourists, some locals. Others were serious, until they discovered none of the kids wanted to be. We eventually led them all to a game.
I think everybody needs reminding that the kids are the gifts to us adults… not the other way around. But we do have the responsibility of what it means to be an adult- with all our now knowledge, experiences, and even capacities- let’s give them everything we can.
“Girl, kung ikaw namiss mo flight mo.”, warned Sol.
“Nah! Di yan.” I say confidently, and with all the reassurance that I want to stay here playing with them.
Honestly, I don’t have a fully formed feeling of excitement about being back in LU after enjoying a new level of peace here. But… I do still wonder and had the excitement of what it means to spend a Christmas with people I genuinely wanted to spend it with this time. Felt like it was going to be my happiest ever…
Regardless, I continued playing and was probably hearing Sol tell me 4 times that I was supposed to leave 20 minutes ago. I mean, it’s not like I’m just an hour left til it boards. Plus, the airport is not that far here.
Anyways, I already prepped and settled everything before that!
I surrendered my house temporarily, telling the owner I’ll leave for a month of two, already guaging the time I’d need to give quality presence to everybody I’ll spend time with in the holidays from the chosen to obligated. They can rent it out short-term, and I’ll be back by February. This was already set days ago, and they bid me well. They get and support my frugality, and I’ve honestly grown to love them deeper, as much as they did with me too- making feel guided and guarded in my sanctuary.
Living in Catangan has the perks of a quiet, the proximity to the wild forest and knowing the shortcuts when any of us need the capital. We’re cozy, we’re lowkey, our fruits are cheaper, and the roads are embraced by greens you can smell and feel… along with the sounds of the pigs and chickens.
I fondly said goodbye before I went to teach the kids. I left my light and unneeded luggage temporarily with Jiji, one that I will return to and unpack once I’m back in that space place in Catangnan, and I had my backpack filled with all I needed to bring in the travel in her house too. There’s not much to bring, and these are all my things.
I was about to leave, bittersweet, until I got a message from Agos. Asking if maybe I can come by her place to get this notebook she wants me to have throughout that. She’s my next door neighbor, and was one of those holy connections I made here.
I decided to take a trike to receive it, passing by the road to our place- and then shockingly they had to block it because of a construction. We turned around, and hilariously we were going as slow as Lolo wanted to go. I remained calm, about to arrive at Jiji’s to get my passport (I left the bags with her so that it’ll be easy to get it and go considering how she was closer to the airport), but then she wasn’t replying and turns out her company had her overtime a little bit. Totally out of her control, but the clock was ticking and I was no longer as relaxed as I was 1 hour ago.
I had to get a habal so we can be quick considering I only have 1 hour and 40 mins left til I arrive, and hilariously, I hear him ask me,
“Mam, sorry… Nagmamadali po ba kayo? Kailangan ko na talaga magpa-gas.” And honestly both of us just laughed at this reality.
By the time I arrived at the airport, Kuya was driving like he was ‘bout to be casted in Fast and the Furious, Philippines Edition, and I hear and echo of “Wo!!”s as he drifts and I get off seamlessly in one go, now running.
10% of my brain was, “Damn it, that was fun.” without shakeability, 20% of my brain was “God. I know you’re not gonna let me leave this island right now. I just know it.”, 30% of my brain was the Kuripot tendency I didn’t shake off yet - “BITCH. PERA KO!?”, 40% of my brain is “I so badly want that Christmas… but why don’t I want to leave too” while I was running quickly. It should’ve been filmed in one shot. I would be a movie people oh so badly want to think of my animated real life.
///
Grumpily, I walked outside, not feeling good because of a power dynamic that transpired with Cebu Pacific. I know I was wrong for being late, but actually if they didn’t just want to try and punish me for it, they’d let me in 5 minutes before the gate truly closed.
I didn’t try to trick them when I said I was caught in traffic! I meant something different! God damn it!
Regardless, I hear the stand by drivers and rides, saying “Hindi mo inabot maam?”, “Bilis niyo kanina kala ko mahuhulog na nga kayo! Angas!”, “Mam, bukas pa gate kanina mga 10 minutes pag pasok niyo- ano nangyari?” and my voice tired and light with air as I respond to each nudge.
,.
“Maam, alam ko baka hindi niyo abutin… Inantay ko nalang kayo.” and I softly said thank you to the man with the airport van with my mixed emotions and a whole lot of gravity. I sulked on the passenger seat. While the gods teased me.
I’m a comedian because my Life is a joke.
Three runaways gather.
Sol waits for me as her fever increases. Received my text, and her motherly presence (the mark of another daughter or a dysfunctional dynamic) already felt this was going to happen. “I knew you might miss your flight considering how much you enjoyed taking your time in the water with the kids. So. I waited here in General Luna, so we can travel to Burgos together.”
She had a house she volunteered to house sit for a friend. Her friend was going to be in Manila for the holidays, and Sol needed the space, and the concrete build was appealing considering the Supertyphoon. Jas was finally convinced to join her by the time I was about to become the house’s third guardian. Her fever was getting worse. She had no choice but to drive the motor because she knows I don’t trust myself fully with one and she wants to go fast. I did my best to give her… a humorous presence.
Jas and her spirited hair flows in front of her face and around as she takes it all in. Sol picks her bed- top floor, spacious, attic type master bedroom. Opening tk the staircase down and up. Access to the tiny balcony just to hang clothes in.
Me, the one closest to the door. I love a spot where I can exit and enter more seamlessly.
Jas near the dining area- bigger space inside, and she loves the living room.
We prep food, I carry a 5-gallon jug of water with everybody amused by my pink nightgown that everybody inside and outside for some reason finds amusing, and I kick open the door.
“You don’t need a man?”, Jas jokes.
“Let’s wait for the typhoon this way”-
Sol & Jas as they put this on
I didn’t feel like watching.
We find our ways. Charge, prepare food, prepare things. Organize the room. Rest. Talk about the way we couldn’t stay.
Sol rides out a fever through the night. Sleeping from the weariness.
Me and Jas decide to sit by the table. She and I have always had the variation of deep to deepest conversations mixed with laughter and questions.
“I realized now I was selfish for opening my heart like that and laying down the truth and my Love only for me to leave with all of it for him to process. I told myself I was brave for being able to declare my Love, but honestly, I could only do it because I am about to leave. I really can’t stay.”
“My gosh… What the fuck is gonna happen to us?”
A series of laughter rings to the air with melodic tunes of our secret hurts and their roots. Individual stories underneath the love lives we like to snicker about.
"The t
“The typhoon’s coming soon.”
In a few hours, the Supertyphoon is coming. I charge a bit of my phone while there was still electricity. My phone’s battery was already overused that it drains on its own without usage. So even if I have 80 percent in one minute, after 5 of it’s on 50. Regardless, I charge not because I want a phone for later- I just want to make sure I let people know I wasn’t able to hop on the flight. I messaged the person I trusted the most and updated her right before it shuts down on me.
And just like that the electricity was gone before the “peak”.
It was raining. Nothing too strong. It wasn’t time. But the line’s gone. At least I left that message.
I surrendered to my bed. Said, “I’d meditate.”
I cried in the bathroom of Sol’s sanctuary in General Luna while she waited for me. I played a song some guy indirectly dedicated to me by telling me this is the song he liked from dvsn the most— after we have sex.
It was a fucking love song it couldn’t even register that night. Just then when I was in the bathroom feeling how ugly I was- and how so far away I felt from my heart. “What did I do?”
I had to act fast after all that delay. When I was in that van from the airport to GL, the gravity only kept getting realer.
Fuck, I knew God wasn’t gonna let me leave and repeat all that shit again.
So, I'm meditating.
Meditating.
Mediating. Medium… Me…M—zzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzzZZzzzzZZZz
zzzz
ZZZzzz
ZzzzZ
BANG!
I look outside my window and see a roof fly, and the trees both broken, and bent. The rain has become a concert of Rock and Roll with the volume at peak, and I don’t know what time it is but that was a deep sleep.
I groggily wake up. I look for my friends.
I don’t see any of them. I see water on the stairs like waterfalls. I’m still groggy. My mind foggy. I’m just looking at things like I’m here for the first time.
I go up carefully and see two of them with backpacks on, the door to that tiny balcony open, and I thought,
“What were they trying to do… Leave through the balcony in because the water came in? Bakit nila pinahirapan sarili nila? Ano difference? Same parin ulan sa labas…”
I rub my eyes again and my consciousness starts to unblur and I hear:
“SOL, HINDI KO NA KAYA MAG-ISA!!!!”
Sol, who’s fully energized and recovered since her sleep, blinks once, eats a bite of her pancit, then rushes to Jas’ side.
I see their hands on the bedframe pushing,
I feel the ocean water on my lips and a gush of water on my face. I see the open door make way for it, and holes on the roof support that flow.
And I ran finally understanding!
THEY’RE TRYING TO CLOSE THE FUCKING BALCONY DOOR !!!!
And I rush to push the bedframe against the wall with them.
Putangina.
The wind blew harder and it pushed us fucking further back. We ran down realizing it’s much more dangerous to try any further and stay there.
Typhoon Rai, known locally as Odette, was a powerful and destructive storm, reaching super typhoon intensity with maximum sustained winds of 195 km/h and gusts up to 260 km/h near landfall.
“I can’t believe you fell asleep while the Supertyphoon was starting.”
"
“Mas natawa ako na kumain muna ng pansit si Sol bago tumulong.”
“Eh yung sinabi ni Jas, “HINDI KO NA KAYA MAG-ISA!!!” Sis, parang lahat ng ng hugot mo nandun..."