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Sunday, October 02, 2005
Estremera: To live in awe
By Stella A. Estremera
Spider's web
I WAS in my usual rush... I had to grab some food before I bury myself with work in the office and the nearest food joint from home is no other than SM. Walking in from the rear door, the tarpaulin of my favorite haunt--New York Bookstands--that second-hand book stall on the ground floor just where the rear escalator starts (or is it ends) beckoned.
But even before my eyes could settle on one particular book and suffer the consequence of giving in to a temptation, a group of persons standing right beside the tarpaulin grabbed my attention.
Their bearing showed to the world they were strangers. They're not your regular mall rats, nor your regular harried editor rushing in to grab some food. Their clothes reiterated this theory, and so did their sun-burnt skin. But it wasn't how they look that first caught my eye. It was their eyes, their mouths, and their bobbing heads.
It was at first comical. An old woman, maybe the mother, standing with feet shoulder-width apart--typical of people like me who never got it into their heads that there's such a thing as poise; a younger woman, maybe the daughter, holding tight to the older woman's arm; a man, around the age of the younger woman who could be the younger woman's husband, standing just a foot away from where the two were huddled; and a boy just starting on adolescence; all facing the escalators, eyes wide, mouths agape, heads bobbing up and down, following the escalator teeth as one more mall rat rides up.
Awe, and maybe fright, too, were written on their faces, I wanted to stand with them and gape as well; if only to feel that awe they were feeling. It's been such a long time now...
To my right, inside the Bass shoe shop, the attendants were huddled together, looking and laughing at the family. They're missing some realization here.
Oookaaay... I admit to having been fascinated by the first and only escalator (and that one was only going up, no ride down because there's no other escalator unit aside from the one going up) in Davao City during my elementary years. (I can almost hear the Dabawenyo readers circa 1970s shrieking and laughing). That was in Datu Complex along Bolton Street. I admit to spending some minutes riding up and taking the rear stairs to go down just to go up again, at least three times when I have the chance. But I also admit to having missed that fascination in just staring at something like an escalator.
I've screamed in consternation, shouted in disbelief, shrieked in surprise, cried in frustration, cringed in distaste, but it has been a long time since I have stared, jaw dropped, eyes widened in fascination.
First, because very few can fascinate me now--a soul jaded by everything in this world; and second, because society says I should keep hold of my jaw. Blas‚ is the word, a word I associate with a droll expression, lifeless, bored, jaded... with a know-it-all look that stares at the world, nose stuck out, sneering in distaste at the "un-evolved".
It was but a very short encounter, less than a minute, because this harried and hurried journalist had to grab some food before burying herself in work for the day, but that short encounter made me realize that I too have allowed myself to become just one more blas‚ person, wearing droll expression, lifeless, bored, jaded... with a know-it-all look that stares at the world, nose stuck out, sneering in distaste at the "un-evolved" and that jolted me. No... I haven't sprouted wings and sparkled off with a halo all of a sudden. That's impossible. And yes, being blas‚ is difficult to shed, but at least my nose isn't stuck that far out anymore.
Next step, to learn to jump and spin for joy, and then... to drop my jaw in awe. Pleasures we have deprived ourselves of on our way to this life-long curse called adulthood.
saestremera@yahoo.com
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (October 2, 2005 issue)
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