FOR the first time in more than ten years, I find myself finally, finally back in Cebu.
Maybe not for good - not yet, at least. But certainly for the next one or two months. Before I leave it, again, and this time to pursue "further studies" abroad, which comes really in the form of a creative writing (poetry) program.
Ok. So maybe the more accurate thing to say is that I've finally, finally left Manila (for the meantime, that is, meaning for now.) Meaning, I've finally, cleaned up the apartment, filtered through ten years' worth of hoarding, keeping, in closets, in jars, in shelves, filled-up boxes, in this case, six!, balikbayan ones, and managed miraculously to seal them all tight, send them all home, and yes, (thanks to Irene of KKC Cargo Xpress!) after just a few days, receive all of it!
One could say that the past few weeks have been strange, if not hectic: finishing a summer term in Ateneo, finalizing all the paper work (or at least most of them) that will prove to be crucial in the next few months (transcripts of records, clearances from school, transfer credentials, diplomas, income tax returns, unsent letters, apartment contracts - moving, I swear, is probably one of the most documented affairs!),and making sure that the room I've been living for the past few years is as close to anonymous as when in 2002, on a bright sunny morning, I had seen it.
And, of course, there's the business of saying goodbye. To friends found, lost, made, reclaimed through the years: college classmates, colleagues in school, students, old and new, the old carrying their children now, the new wanting too quickly, too insistently, to be old. Neighbors , of course! Tita Cynthia, from across the hall, moving apartments too, in her case to another side of the city. Our cumulative boxes, from outside our doors, like huge metaphorical (and literal!) mountain of time and emotion waiting to start moving. An odd concordance, really, deserving its own celebration of sorts: in this case, an impromptu toast of white wine, in the balcony, under the fierce summer heat of the year, on the very day, the very hour, I have to leave for the airport. A perfect timing for everything, even goodbye.
Although, I like to think, it takes a certain ritual of severing ties, opening one's self to new ones, to truly honor the moments of leaving. For friends, a long series of nights, in the apartment, helping me pack: folding the shirts, throwing the mugs, the pens, the photographs, my sentimental state-of-mind find myself incapable of letting go. Truth be told, more drinking got done than actual packing!
And honestly, it's the older ones who understand it more: this need to honor, to commemorate, with food and drink, talk and laughter, this inevitable state of moving, leaving. The younger ones believe, somewhat falsely, that I'll always be in touch.
To no surprise. It is a generation, of course, that has grown up with the illusory permeating presence of the internet, and chat, and Skype, and email. A generation brought up to believe everyone is always, always just a click or text away (given that there's a signal). No apparent difference between here and there, now and then, we all get to see each other online, anyway. All absence becomes a form of presence; all presence, a version of absence.
Although, the older ones certainly know otherwise. Know the stretch of time called today, tomorrow, may not always yield the return we continually imagine: friendships get lost along the way, names and faces may change, sentiments may turn transmogrified into something we no longer recognize.
zxxzThey know in spite of cell phones and chat rooms and web cams, nothing beats the lived and full-bodied laugh that is at our side, on the table, an arm's length away. They believe that leaving and all its attendant absences must be honored: lest in the trivializing of the lost, we fail to bear sight and weight on the blessings of the found: the one that's here. The man that's just left, that's just returned. The new found friend that by virtue of time and space circumstance may not permit us to get to know better.