The thing itself

What I love most about vacations is the travel time. 2009 opens with a visit to Corregidor and closes with a sojourn to Ilocos. In between, swimming lessons, piano recitals, LASIK surgery and Philippine tragedies. Still in between, a challenge to be more critical and an encouragement to be more hopeful. And always, there are the people who make things worth it, if not interesting.

I am excellent at fantasizing and I am also a lover of planning. It is both arrogant and self-defeating for me to say that if I can make it happen in my head, it will happen—because I can set practical goals but I tend to be lazy. It is a year of plans gone well. It is me testing my discipline. Which is to say I risk little. Mine is the most careful adventure.

Which is to say all I am doing seems to be a preparation for something. The swimming lessons for my triathlon dreams, the piano recitals for the promised performances to loved ones, the LASIK surgery for—being comfortable during the triathlon and looking good on my promised performances. While some may say I forget about the present, I say I enjoy things twice, now and in the thought of how it will affect the future. But I must concede that I bother more with what's to come.

How many blues can one morning give us?

Somehow I manage to stop looking for respites. There is work but there is good in work. There is lost sleep but there is thought to replace sleep. I need the same attitude when it comes to vacations and kill the idea of opportunity cost. Let that be my first step in taking risks: divest the moment of cause and effect; let my self and the world be.

I love the long travel going to Ilocos as I longingly imagine how it will be once there. I love the long travel back to Manila as I urgently process what has been. The anticipation of being there and the relief of being home. Playing with the waves of Pagudpud, I think of how I will relate the strength of the water to my brother; how to word the morning I cannot let go of but mindlessly went.