One Quiet Afternoon

I arrived in Iloilo a little over two weeks ago and yet this is my very first lazy afternoon at home - with no appointments to rush to, nothing important to do, no life-altering event to mull over. It's just me sitting by a couch my mom had strategically placed beside my window. My mother remodeled my room less than a year ago. It's the very same room I occupied as a child when we first moved into our house about 24 years ago. I walked in one day in October, hours after arriving from Manila to twin emotions - first, the utter elation of seeing my mini-library of books piled on extra wooden shelves she had installed on the wall and second, to the complete horror that she had repainted a significant part of the room avocado green and the remaining three-quarters a pale pink.

But the one thing I do love about the room is the newly added couch which she had positioned strategically beside my window. I had always wanted a couch by the window on this side of the room because I had always thought it would be one of the perfect places to read, write, play guitar, think or just be plain quiet. I don't know how she knew that I wanted it that way because I never told her. Case of mother's instinct, I suppose. Sometimes, when my sister's beagle Mai wanders into the room, she occupies one end of the couch while I sit on the other end and we both live a rather peaceful co-existence for about fifteen seconds until she realizes my bed is way more comfy and makes a sky-high leap for it.

The two weeks since I've been home have been nothing but sheer madness. Yesterday, Doi asked me if I was back in Iloilo and I told her I was in town but I was practically living in my grandfather's hospital room. The routine was pretty much very easy to memorize - up by 7 (or 8 if I like the pillows a little too much), in the hospital about an hour later, lunch with the grandparents, while the afternoon away in the company of IV tubes, sphygmomanometers, pulse oxymeters, nurses and tubs of hospital pancit canton, dinner, drive home then slumber party time. It doesn't help much that the traffic here is snarling insane, something I am totally unused to in this side of the country. What used to take about ten to fifteen minutes travel from my house to almost any point within the city has now shot up to half an hour or even more. Blame it on the construction of (only) the second flyover in the city and on a dozen or so road improvements, drainage repair and any other activity which involves noisy drilling and slight ground trembling in random parts of Iloilo. Interesting how all these so-called infrastructure developments always make their presence felt come election season.

Lately, my gwamps has been doing very well, loads and heaps better than the state he was in when he arrived in the hospital on the night of Holy Thursday. The past two weeks were akin to being in a theme park - a carousel for the first couple of days, followed by a walk through the haunted mansion, then a sudden shift to the gyro drop...just one monster rollercoaster all through out. Now we're sort of in one of those floating swan rides and hopefully heading straight for the exit right after. I have a feeling a lot of people are thinking I should be used to such a set-up by now. Believe me, I too thought the run-down has become all too familiar but I was quite surprised at the revelation that I had grown too comfortably close to the routine for comfort that I was always expecting to see the light a the end of the tunnel all the time. Maybe this time that light has somehow showed up again but what then will I do when everything remains pitch dark and I forget my Coleman flashlight in my desk drawer with the colorful, springy keychain still lopped around it like a boa constrictor?

In short, I've barely been home. The house has been transformed into nothing more than a hotel/changing area and to have this quiet, lazy, leisurely afternoon all to myself is certainly as precious to me as the Shy Violet rag doll I've had since I was four. No, actually scratch out "quiet" in the description. The four dogs have been barking at each other just outside my window, their fangs out and vocal chords exercised to the max. Turns out the beagle is back to terrorizing the three others who are older and more laid back, howling at their noses just close enough to give them temporary deafness yet far enough to escape a nip. Add to the interesting array of canine sounds is the occasional noise pollution thanks to campaign jingles which are played on speakers mounted on mini-trucks and prowl around the city. So far I've heard versions of "Jai Ho" and Willie Revillame's "Igiling-giling" among others and the roving music boxes make their pass every half an hour or so in our relatively quiet neighborhood.

It's a good afternoon, not too hot and the canopy of clouds gives the sun a bashful appearance. I'm not exactly sure what time it is as my wall clock is off to the repair shop. It's a pretty old thing, about 14 years old in a plastic blue casing. I miss the ticking sound the second hand makes, a faint mini-version of a whoosh that travels short distances. I can't throw the clock away because it is the only one of its kind. I dolled it up myself back in high school and tried to make it quirky-cute, gluing an old family photo underneath the clock's hands then sticking colorful buttons and paper clips all over it, along with a 10 centavo coin and the old version of the 25 centavo coin (the one with the butterfly), just so I will never forget how both metal pieces looked like. Besides, I like old things, much like the thingamajigs taking their own special spot in every nook and cranny in my private space in this house. They make me feel like I'm somehow in control of time and memory, two of life's best gifts which could someday turn into any person's biggest betrayer, depending on how one looks at it.

I took time off from reading Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" just a while ago. It's the third book I've picked up ever since I got home and I'm well on the way of fulfilling a promise I made to myself to catch up on non-law related material for reading despite all the hospital duties. Maybe tonight I might go back to reading that after I finish writing this...this...random nonsense. It is quite a page-turner and is beautifully written, much like the other two titles I finished earlier in the month. If not, maybe get a head-start on all the movies and TV series Anissa gave me before I left. Honestly they all look so interesting, I don't know where to start. Again, it's mostly old stuff, period material or movies made (or based on events that occurred) way before I wsd even a thought...and definitely lots of Austen. Add that to the other flicks that have had their share of abusive rewatching in the hospital: "Little Women," "The Last of the Mohicans (and the sigh-inducing Eric Schweig two decades ago)", "Willow," "The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Janeane Garofalo's unrivalled wit and humor)", "Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer," and "Reality Bites (and defining irony)."

It's finally quiet, perhaps because Mai has finally decided to leave the older dogs alone. I could hear Mrs. Chu, our next-door neighbor, playing her piano. It's a series of soft tinkles, a sound that almost resembles the wonky-tonky mini pianos that kids usually get for Christmas and sound like xylophones. Mrs. Chu is a great with the ivory keys, I swear. I took lessons from her for about six years until high school came in. I'd walk into her house in my PJs and she'd give me chocolate after some lessons. Now, I listen more intently as she strikes the notes with the precision of a samurai wielder. No matter how hard I listen, I can't seem to make out the piece she's playing. The sky is turning into watercolor before my eyes, bluish with a highlight of orange. It's nothing short of breathtaking and it's all just from my window. I am not quite sure how it looks like outside so I take a step out as I am sure it would turn out grander.

When I come back minutes later, Shy Violet still sits in a hunch beside my old Simba stuffed toy. I take my seat once more on the couch with my fluffy pillow propped on my back. She stares at me through her rubber, painted glasses and I return the stare through my own specs. She certainly has done nothing in all the months and yearss I've been away, in all the hours I've never been home but wait for me. And though she will never know it, I'm certainly more than glad to be in her and Simba's company on this quiet, lazy afternoon.