It took almost eight unholy hours of bus ride to reach home. The distance from Los Baños to Naga City dwarfed the Isarog Liner like a white box of welded steel running aimlessly—or so it seemed—against the backdrop of rice paddies and inanimate objects standing for posterity at night. With the vehicle prancing in the dark and with only the stars and headlights guiding it through the seemingly infinite stretch of dim roads, it felt like the void of space and the vastness of the universe came swooping down before us.
But it wasn’t exactly a surprise, nor will it ever be one. It hasn’t been an unfamiliar sight in the past, and so it is until today. Quite on the contrary, the void and vastness suffused into a single fearsome whole is nothing but ordinary.
To begin with, a great deal of my life has been spent retracing those dusty roads to Bicol like a summer obligation, or a sworn devotion, or perhaps even both, to the cause of going back home like a balikbayan would, except that I’m confined in my own country. The fury of the sun and the years that went with those travels in the past are among the countless silent witnesses to the miles I have conquered, to the enormity of distances I have spanned back and forth, from Naga City to Los Baños notwithstanding, there and back again. Between Naga City and Los Baños, the journey across has with it two reasons which cajole human forgetfulness in all its strengths and frailties. That human forgetfulness turns the recollection of all things good and mirthful into slumber. That human forgetfulness forges the anorexia of the mind with the anorexia of the spirit of remembering.
That human forgetfulness, nonetheless, succumbs to the gravity of what gives and what reminds. One, it gives a sense of coming home—and reminds one about it. And two, it gives a sense of having to leave home—and reminds one about it as well. Of course, home for me would have to be Naga City, although there were moments when it felt the other way around, that home was Los Baños and Naga City was some distant urban community sitting right next to a sleeping mountain, far away like the lands you hear in old fairy tales. But that would be a separate story.
The sense of coming home is overpowering yet simultaneously calming. It overpowers the resistance to return. Even more so, it calms that resistance like wild horses tamed at the first sight of the equestrian approaching from afar. That is so because the sense of coming home is a scent too inviting for one to refuse. To return from whence one came is to reunite in both flesh and soul with the land that nurtured one’s flesh and soul in ways the extent of the imagination can barely begin to explain. Yet that land, too, is rarely appreciated for all its worth and the worth it bequeaths to those who live and die with it, and even to those who leave it. Coming home to Naga City is the least that I can do to give justice to the term Nagueño, quite apart from the many things I could have done. The voyage back to the maogmang lugar (happy place) is symbolic in itself. It is a literal and figurative way of paying homage to the land that cradled those teenage years like that of a mother to her child. Or more biblically, like that of a father to his prodigal son.
That scent, too, revitalizes one’s capacity and willingness to remember. The mind is a hollow bastion waiting to be filled, which is true in almost all cases. But that is even truer when the sense of coming home reignites the impetus to do something about a not-so-distant history, parts and parcels of which have been and are already forgotten. Indeed, something ought to be done with a forgotten history, buried deep in the recesses of memory. Flooding the drought of memories with the spoils of the not-so-distant past, the very thought of coming home excites the withering spirit and catapults it back to the level of life. A close encounter with one’s roots banishes the famine of memories and replenishes its weakening marrow with the potency of childhood fantasies and follies of shapes and sizes. A closer encounter rediscovers the memories which used to be one of the most vivid things in the world, or in the mind. It does so like a mythical elixir drowning the bellies of those who forget as easily as they remember. Like the fragility of childhood, those fantasies and follies reminiscent of one’s memories sadly age and ebb with time, gathering dust and dirt swifter when all is said and done. That is equally true with the refusal to abandon the fences of the native land, resisting the winds of change right smack from the roots. Owing largely to its temporality, the urge to stay nevertheless erodes. Castles made of sand crash down even with the slightest push of the seas.
The sense of having to leave your homeland confronts all the compounded reasons not to do so. The reasons to stay may come in swollen volumes, but when the reasons to leave prevail over all the combined reasons to do otherwise, the reasons to stay in one’s land turns into complete dissolution. It surmounts the desire to remain at home. That is axiomatic when the necessity to leave develops into monumental proportions, henceforth outweighing the gravity of the necessity to stay. The motives to leave march before the horizon lines like a goliath with the might of an impregnable David.
I left, not once, not twice, but many times over. Yet I returned, not once, not twice, but many times over, too. And so the journey home.
It was a journey which almost burned our asses for having to wait and sit for too long, eager on one hand, or ass, and tired on the other. We were at the mercy of the machine and the expanse of the terrain. The grinding motor at the rear roaring like a beast, cogs and bolts swirling like a violent storm waiting to happen, the seeming permanence of the evening felt mystical, if not frightening.
Except for the engines squealing throughout the night, the evening went peaceful. Peaceful because the sole evidence of complex forms of life emanated from within the bus, although it felt like there were menacing phantoms lurking in the shadows of the mountains and fields. You know the absence of civility when both sides of the road are empty of human traces. Or faint semblances of animate shadows swiftly abating with the flash of light, signs of false life were never far behind. The absence of civility is one absence that makes one cringe at the thought of the lack of the comforts of living. But that, too, is an absence which hurls us back to whence we all came. It is an absence that grows deep into the gorges of our sensibilities. Ironically, that same absence transfigures into an omnipotent presence. The embrace of nature sprawling and sprouting madly in various contours as far as the eyes can see, the absence of human life along the way gave the presence of nature the ‘presence’ it rightfully deserves.
Though nature gives and takes, proof of which are the innumerable typhoons and road mishaps that have punctuated the lives of many with exclamation marks or three dots, we made it home safely. You know you have arrived in Naga City when jeepney and tricycle drivers greet you first with “Centro?” or “Centro!”, and sometimes marhay na aldaw. (Good Morning)
But it wasn’t exactly a surprise, nor will it ever be one. It hasn’t been an unfamiliar sight in the past, and so it is until today. Quite on the contrary, the void and vastness suffused into a single fearsome whole is nothing but ordinary.
To begin with, a great deal of my life has been spent retracing those dusty roads to Bicol like a summer obligation, or a sworn devotion, or perhaps even both, to the cause of going back home like a balikbayan would, except that I’m confined in my own country. The fury of the sun and the years that went with those travels in the past are among the countless silent witnesses to the miles I have conquered, to the enormity of distances I have spanned back and forth, from Naga City to Los Baños notwithstanding, there and back again. Between Naga City and Los Baños, the journey across has with it two reasons which cajole human forgetfulness in all its strengths and frailties. That human forgetfulness turns the recollection of all things good and mirthful into slumber. That human forgetfulness forges the anorexia of the mind with the anorexia of the spirit of remembering.
That human forgetfulness, nonetheless, succumbs to the gravity of what gives and what reminds. One, it gives a sense of coming home—and reminds one about it. And two, it gives a sense of having to leave home—and reminds one about it as well. Of course, home for me would have to be Naga City, although there were moments when it felt the other way around, that home was Los Baños and Naga City was some distant urban community sitting right next to a sleeping mountain, far away like the lands you hear in old fairy tales. But that would be a separate story.
The sense of coming home is overpowering yet simultaneously calming. It overpowers the resistance to return. Even more so, it calms that resistance like wild horses tamed at the first sight of the equestrian approaching from afar. That is so because the sense of coming home is a scent too inviting for one to refuse. To return from whence one came is to reunite in both flesh and soul with the land that nurtured one’s flesh and soul in ways the extent of the imagination can barely begin to explain. Yet that land, too, is rarely appreciated for all its worth and the worth it bequeaths to those who live and die with it, and even to those who leave it. Coming home to Naga City is the least that I can do to give justice to the term Nagueño, quite apart from the many things I could have done. The voyage back to the maogmang lugar (happy place) is symbolic in itself. It is a literal and figurative way of paying homage to the land that cradled those teenage years like that of a mother to her child. Or more biblically, like that of a father to his prodigal son.
That scent, too, revitalizes one’s capacity and willingness to remember. The mind is a hollow bastion waiting to be filled, which is true in almost all cases. But that is even truer when the sense of coming home reignites the impetus to do something about a not-so-distant history, parts and parcels of which have been and are already forgotten. Indeed, something ought to be done with a forgotten history, buried deep in the recesses of memory. Flooding the drought of memories with the spoils of the not-so-distant past, the very thought of coming home excites the withering spirit and catapults it back to the level of life. A close encounter with one’s roots banishes the famine of memories and replenishes its weakening marrow with the potency of childhood fantasies and follies of shapes and sizes. A closer encounter rediscovers the memories which used to be one of the most vivid things in the world, or in the mind. It does so like a mythical elixir drowning the bellies of those who forget as easily as they remember. Like the fragility of childhood, those fantasies and follies reminiscent of one’s memories sadly age and ebb with time, gathering dust and dirt swifter when all is said and done. That is equally true with the refusal to abandon the fences of the native land, resisting the winds of change right smack from the roots. Owing largely to its temporality, the urge to stay nevertheless erodes. Castles made of sand crash down even with the slightest push of the seas.
The sense of having to leave your homeland confronts all the compounded reasons not to do so. The reasons to stay may come in swollen volumes, but when the reasons to leave prevail over all the combined reasons to do otherwise, the reasons to stay in one’s land turns into complete dissolution. It surmounts the desire to remain at home. That is axiomatic when the necessity to leave develops into monumental proportions, henceforth outweighing the gravity of the necessity to stay. The motives to leave march before the horizon lines like a goliath with the might of an impregnable David.
I left, not once, not twice, but many times over. Yet I returned, not once, not twice, but many times over, too. And so the journey home.
It was a journey which almost burned our asses for having to wait and sit for too long, eager on one hand, or ass, and tired on the other. We were at the mercy of the machine and the expanse of the terrain. The grinding motor at the rear roaring like a beast, cogs and bolts swirling like a violent storm waiting to happen, the seeming permanence of the evening felt mystical, if not frightening.
Except for the engines squealing throughout the night, the evening went peaceful. Peaceful because the sole evidence of complex forms of life emanated from within the bus, although it felt like there were menacing phantoms lurking in the shadows of the mountains and fields. You know the absence of civility when both sides of the road are empty of human traces. Or faint semblances of animate shadows swiftly abating with the flash of light, signs of false life were never far behind. The absence of civility is one absence that makes one cringe at the thought of the lack of the comforts of living. But that, too, is an absence which hurls us back to whence we all came. It is an absence that grows deep into the gorges of our sensibilities. Ironically, that same absence transfigures into an omnipotent presence. The embrace of nature sprawling and sprouting madly in various contours as far as the eyes can see, the absence of human life along the way gave the presence of nature the ‘presence’ it rightfully deserves.
Though nature gives and takes, proof of which are the innumerable typhoons and road mishaps that have punctuated the lives of many with exclamation marks or three dots, we made it home safely. You know you have arrived in Naga City when jeepney and tricycle drivers greet you first with “Centro?” or “Centro!”, and sometimes marhay na aldaw. (Good Morning)
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