Soul Searching are for Cowards like Me

Dear You;

I can just feel every detail, Your unique and minuscule features that I never bothered putting into words. And it always hits me, in unexpected moments, how much I miss You. How much I craved for Your embrace, the warmth of Your skin, or Your breath in my ears. And I would feel helpless. If only I could close my eyes, and the world would just scatter, and I would no longer drown on my own misery. If it were only that easy. It was not easy but there’s no option left but to try.

So I packed my 30liter bag with as much as I can carry, and did as much research as I can. Research meaning that Google fed me a few blogs that offered little help to where I’m going. I should have obtained more detailed maps. I should have brought more equipment with me. I should have been physically more prepared. But my lack of preparation was overpowered by my desire to escape everything that’s haunting me, thinking that the change of scenery and lifestyle would be of help, like taking a pill to make me forget how much I hated that You’re with someone else. It became a popular cliché a few months ago, where do broken hearts go, well I’m going to Benguet.

My Companion for over a Month. 

A friend commented of how brave I was for travelling on my own for as long as I did. I felt the opposite, I felt like a coward. And it was obvious tome at first how travelling had the impression of mending a broken will to move on. It’s a great irony, you’re stuck in an emotion you’re trying to eradicate, so you move your mind and body, hoping that what you are feeling, as worse as it is, would be left behind. The adrenaline of laying my eyes to new places, and meeting interesting people was more than enough to occupy my mind, and outrun whatever ghost I’m trying to get away from. I was mostly trekking, and the added fatigue that my body endured was added burden I was willing to take to keep my attention from thinking of You.

I was a fool, thinking I could hide from my own memories. It’ll always catch up to me, always without warning, always at full throttle. I could be lying under the afternoon sun after a two hour ascent of a hill, and I would just wish You were sitting next to me so that I could lean on your shoulders and rest for a while. I would be staring at one of the most beautiful terraces I’ve ever seen, and I would imagine that You’re standing beside me while I was holding Your hand. I would be shivering beneath the waters of crystal clear rivers deep in the mountains, and cursing myself for You could have been there with me, and I would wrap my arms around You. It was hard for me to sleep early, with only the silence of the night ringing in my ears, Your face would flood my soul and I would bury my head in my pillows wishing for the world, or just myself, to fade away. And even if I do manage to slip into my dreams, I would almost always wake up in the middle of the night, freezing in the cold climate of the mountains, and the weight of Your absence would once again submerge me in my own loneliness.

One of those rivers that became my personal bath tub.

So I had to adapt. I had to read a book while resting in the middle of my treks to divert my mind. Always I was seeking attention from locals, asking them for their stories, helping them in their farms, playing with the children, and always having someone around. I would help my adopted mother, Nanay Marcelin, crafting her baskets that she would later sell in the town. I would wake up as early as possible so that I could once again find something else to do with my time, either pounding the Rice grains or adjusting the tunnels of the Bell pepper garden of Tatay Andres. I’ve learned to stare at the mountains, and spot the difference in their appearance at different time of the day. I would be sipping their coffee grown in their backyard and realizing how I haven’t watched tv in five weeks, and I didn’t miss it one bit.

My stint as a farmer with Tatay Andres and his Bell Pepper Garden

And in my lonely state of mind, away from my friends and family, I’ve began to be more appreciative of the hospitality of each home I was let into. Ate Sofia who I stayed with in Tacadang, felt like an older cousin to me, with her infectious laugh and boyish attitude, and her singing in the kitchen while she sautés vegetables for lunch, made me feel like I was a visiting relative rather than I complete stranger. And his father, who doesn’t know a single tagalog word, always looked at me with his kind eyes like I was his grandson from a different lifetime. Tatay Andres, who I stayed for 3 days when I was in Tublay, didn’t like the idea of me leaving. He was like a cool Uncle to me, where he told me stories of them In their younger days, going up in secluded parts of the mountains to hunt cloud rats and other edible mammals and reptiles. He didn’t even think twice when he took me to his cousin’s wedding and introduced me as his guest in his house, and made me drink Gin with his relative and friends like I was part of their extended family.

And like a blessing to further amplify my desire to forget, I would always find myself in sitios and barangay where festivities are being celebrated coinciding my arrival. Of course there was the aforementioned wedding, which lasted minimum of 3 days there, but I was also lucky to attend birthdays, death anniversaries, Christmas and new year parties, where all of them were a community affair, no invitations needed, and anyone was free to come. I was amused how the locals who struggled with tagalog, becomes fluent when intoxicated by alcohol.

An Igorot Wedding.

I was always struggling to comprehend how these people can be so friendly and accommodating for someone so different from them. I always felt like an alien, a naïve soul from the city, who was trying to live with real human beings, so attuned with nature, molded by hard work, and more loving to their family. They weren’t trying to hustle anyone, and malice seemed like a notion as foreign to them as I was. But my uneasiness for our difference in cultures was always kicked in the balls by how much they made me feel welcome in their community. I was never a tourist or an unwanted spectator, I was a guest, or I would like to think, an adopted member of their closely knit community.

And these epiphanies made me realize how petty my problems are. What was I running away from? A broken heart? I suddenly felt ashamed.  Here I am, burning every last bit of will, just to try and forget You, thinking that losing You was the end of everything I can become. And then there they are, without electricity, without their own supply of water, no roads nearby in all direction, sunbathing in their farms all day, and trying not to freeze at night, and they’ll offer you a cup of coffee with smiles on their faces like they don’t have a single complain to God.

Do you live to Eat? or Eat to Live?

I was so naïve. I began to think that I was born in the wrong civilization. I wished I grew up there, deep in the mountains, for I may not be pouting all day over losing You. Relationship probably has a higher success rate there for they don’t dwell with the same dramas and complications that lovers in the city inflict on themselves.  Life was simple, and the absence of material desire liberated them from the misery of always trying to improve your situation. I began to feel envious to their lives, and then felt bad again for envy is something they probably don’t feel. It dawned on me how I’ve been wasting my time dwelling with superficial problems and concerns that doesn’t equate to the pursuit of happiness.

Still, I wasn’t able to forget You. You’re still a gem I wish I still had, or on some days, I tumor I prayed that one day would go away. So i wrote this one to let you know, the former center of my universe,... No, scratch that. I wrote this to remind myself, that you may have been the reason that i traveled there, but I found another purpose to stay. -_-