NOTES ON PROSPECTIVE/RETROSPECTIVE SUMMER TRAVEL: MAKING MINE MIMICRY

Can we describe the world this way,
eyes wide open, shoes up on the table
with dusky halo like a lantern,
and the still face, distant and ever-demanding,
nailing us down with its eyes,
hunting down in our innards
the cowardly swagger of allegory?
It is possible. The world can be described
in any way you like.
(- Heberto Padilla
from A Fountain, a House of Stone)
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The world is a peanut.
The world is a plastic balloon.

The world is my playground.

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I love to travel. I love travelling so much I had to fool myself just so I could travel. My Colombian friend once told me that at the strike of 12:00 midnight New Year's Eve I have to walk around the complex carrying luggage like travellers do. I followed her instruction to the T as in Te, and from that moment on I had been travelling - in time.

If I can eat dalag today, if I can ride on a carabaoback today, I have to be 11 years old and vacationing in my father's remote town in faraway Ilocos.

I feel awkward; past tense from hereon.

We went to Ilocos for summer vacation after I graduated from elementary, and if you asked how, it's because I got to first grade at the horrible age of 6. Supposedly salingpusa or whatever the cat that is, I was at the top of the class by the end of the term (My classmates must all have been successful today; rule of karma, you know...)

We hied off to Ilocos where my aunt and uncle lived, half a day's drive away from my Dad's. We took Philippine Rabbit and I remember that the bus engine was not up front or at the back of the bus but right inside and beside the driver. Boy, it was hot. It was hot because it was summer and because of that engine that could (kill us all). I was wearing a white shirt and I remember this, too, very clearly because when we got to our destination I was magically wearing a black shirt. I also had black nails, blackened face, and boy, my hairless nostrils were as black as hell. Of course the bus was not air conditioned. For crying out loud, my dad's town didn't even have power. No Virginia tobacco, it was not a power blackout (please, not black again); power was simply not distributed in that town yet.

So you may ask, how long ago was this?, and I will ask you, how long is a Chinaman?

The town, facing the Sierra Madres, was a very peaceful town. Until we arrived. We arrived at night, and the following day, the place was never ever the same again.

First, my sister, then 15, supposedly intelligent, left her brains at home. She was bathing by the artesian well when all of a sudden she dropped the soap in the well. If the soap were coin, it could have brought good luck. But because the soap were a soap, it was naturally bad luck. Why? Because the well was the source of drinking water for the entire community. And so, while we watch with bated breath, some townsfolk with gritting teeth had to rapel down the well and serve as human compressor. He had to drain the well until all soapy extracts were removed and new spring water was ready to quell our effing thirst once more.

Then one time we had to go to the ricefields to bring kakanin to the farmers and farmhands. We took the bullcart and on the way to the fields, with the mountains as if only a mile away, life was a thrill. Going back to my aunt's hut was a thrill too. A real thriller actually because somehow the bull felt really bullshit with us and it ran as fast as it could, never mind the humps and bumps locally known as pilapils, and on the way home my sisters and myself were crying, with me probably crying the loudest because my head got its own share of humps and bumps.

Speaking of kakanin, my aunt was a traditionalist even with kakanins, and everytime she cooked the fare, the first plate was for the spirits. "Para sa ispirito, wag gagalawin", she would tell us with a straight face by way of introduction to their Ilocano world of spirits. But my Dad, despite being a dj (dj d banger, to quote batjay) - a true blue Ilocano, I mean, did not believe in spirits. So one time he ate the plate of kakanin on the table. My sisters and I were horrified; we were covering our faces while my dad was savoring the ricecake and washing it down with salabat. When my aunt came, she was petrified. "Who ate the kakanin?", she asked. "Who's it for?", my dad asked. "For the spirits of course", she replied. "Then he spirits ate them", he said, and that ended the discussion. My dad was the eldest and despite lack of tradition, his word was law, even to his siblings, bless their collective souls.

to be continued, in traveltime...