Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!

As usual, New Year here in Davao is more like a whimper than a bang. We had to be contented with banging our pots and kettle and blaring TVs and stereos and blowing car horns. I know and I understand the reason for the total ban of firecrackers in this part of the world. It's just that there's something in the air of the first second of the year that predisposes one to nostalgia- of things past and of have-beens, like the smell of firecracker smoke as it hung and lingers after the clock struck 12 many years ago.

It doesn't become just about the traditions lost in the memories of my youth but it also becomes a reminder of the bits and pieces of the past year. The more recent events- the small triumphs, the petty heartaches, the 5-second orgasm, the 5-minute fame, the meaningful winks, the fake laughters, the wrinkled foreheads, the soft kisses, the unending process to old age. It sometimes get too acute that it momentarily and painfully burns my heart. It's a good thing that it stops as soon as it starts. The memories tug and threaten to bring tears to my eyes. I fight against the onslaught of emotions because I always want to be strong.

My eyes mist but in the haze of the moment, I suddenly see people in polka dots with me, jumping like crazy with pockets bulging full of coins. My family. Safe, secure and complete. In a complete turnabout, a different feeling washes over me. That of the feeling that is completely in the here and now. I feel gratitude for whatever I see in my immediate surroundings and in a vague way, an enveloping optimism for all the things that composes the world right exactly at that moment.

I felt humbled with the great vastness of it all and the unfathomable mystery that defines now. The first thought about firecrackers completely forgotten and memories of recent events dismissed and with unexplainable clarity, I understood the reason of living, of surviving, of existing. The understanding felt so definite and so sure that I even felt I could explain it although I knew I couldn't. With a welcome sigh, I opened my arms, felt a single pearl of a tear in my cheeks and finally felt it was New Year.

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