Home of the Five Senses

Went for pan de sal at 6AM - driving my way through the city. Passed through Hibbard Avenue, the street that runs through the heart of Silliman University, legendary alma mater of many, me included. It's the smell, I realize. The sickly sweet stench of decaying leaves and acacia blossoms, that brings back the memory of school days past. I've missed this. I've longed for it, without really realizing it - I realize this in the rush of wind and humming silence that somehow pervades everything this early in the morning. Everyone is waking up, and the street is bare, except for the occasional jogger. I inhale the scent of my youth, and relive the days when I was young and worry-free, and waking up early was a drag. It meant elementary school and dragging textbooks to work every day, and then the jungle gym after school with a little chinese garter thrown in. It was pressing my uniform, lacing up my shoes, hiking up my socks, bringing my notes with me, slaving through chemistry and math and the sheer oppression of the ignorance that is high school. It was driving with my hair wet to a 7AM college class. It's going for a pan de sal run in the morning, now that I'm older and buying my own bread. But even through that, life was, is beautiful. The acacia trees know this.

And then it's the pan de sal itself, really. I pull over, park my motorcycle and order a bag of steaming hot bread, and it's delicious. I see the steam, curling up in white smoky tendrils, and I know when I sink my teeth into one of the hot bread buns, it will be delicous and my taste buds will thank me for my kindness. Because I have missed this. The pan de sal baker boys are hard at work kneading a table-full of bread dough. I can see them in the back room. I leave.

Kick start the motor. Head home. Decide to pass by the boulevard, a route I always follow when I'm home. Always a sight in the morning, the glittering strait and the huffing puffing joggers pass by. The dogs go on their morning walks and here and there a solitary motorcab trolls for passengers. I pass the closed doors of Chin Loong, and remember. I remember the night we decide to eat out as a family, and end up waiting for two hours just to get fed. I thought I was going to eat the tablecloth. I see the SuperFerry ship, docked, waiting. I watch the waves crash against the sides of the walk. I see the sun, and feel its kiss - it's gentle, a caress. Nothing like the searing embrace of high noon. It's only morning.

Another morning spent in the crazy hubbub of the tabo in Piapi. Women hawking eggplants, cabbages, corn. Bananas. Shellfish, slowly dying. Crabs, their pincers tied up - I wonder what they feel when they know today might be ended inside the confines of a pot? And then I brush it off because we must eat to live. The flies scatter, rattled by the woman's plastic switch, away from the wide-open eyes of fish that were swimming happily just hours ago. It's death. And life. And I drink it all in and love it. My mother buys dried fish. There is no other experience quite like dried fish, and I realize it's been eons since I've had it. I squeal happily. We go through the stalls, and I feel transported - too much time spent in the artificial confines of a supermarket, where everything is wrapped and cut, and dried, and perma-sealed. It's too clean, somehow. Here, on a mild Wednesday morning, I hold hands with my mother and hunt for a bargain. I can taste tonight's adobong nukos already.

I'm home.