A week had passed and I haven’t gotten myself on Manila bearings yet. I guess it has something to do with the fact that I hardly ever sleep on time, or that I keep on doing things that take me past reasonable bedtime hours for people.
Holy Week used to be the Holy Grail for family time when all of us children were still students. We actually managed to pack eight people in a sedan – my brother driving, me seated on my father’s lap on the front passenger seat, and my three sisters, my mother, and my other brother at the back.
There were the trips to Pangasinan – with side trips to Baguio for some days. There were the company trips and beach-hopping in Cavite and Batangas – and Holy Week was the only time everybody was available.
Time has past and the allure of Holy Week has faded. Holy Week was also the week that added to the mystique that was our father.
I had made plans with my brother to go to Puerto Galera for Holy Week – but we decided too late and everything was so expensive. In the end, we joined my sister and her family to my brother-in-law’s place in Batangas. We were there from Thursday to Saturday.
At the start of the week, I pointedly avoided seeing my former boss when I visited RFM – it was a good thing he was in Jakarta at a meeting following the First Miss ASEAN Pageant. On a side note, our entry and the winner, Jheazarie Javier, looks very personable. An apt winner, and some plus points for a land looking for some.
I brought the cheque donation of SPA to the Cartwheel Foundation. It was a moment of some significance, and I feel good for all the efforts I exerted on getting that cheque safely settled in their hands.
Of course, the transition to Manila life wasn’t easy. When I was younger, I looked askance upon our eldest brother, but since we discovered that we were helpless drunks (and still are, God help us), we have gotten along just fine. My best friend was my other brother – but since that fateful Change so many years back – I have gone through several stages from self-loathing to pity to disdain to indifference. I can’t change who we were – there is so much history for me to ignore that – but the present is such a quandary to resolve.
So it was in a tense atmosphere that we left Manila for Batangas.
In the provinces, the onset of time is far heavier than it is in Manila. Adapting would mean becoming more laidback – or moving out. So, the more things change, the more that they remain the same. What I find so sad is that people leave so much damage in their wake.
Malabrigo Point in Lobo, Batangas is a national historic site - the landmark of that place is a lighthouse built by the Americans to guide ships around the point to Batangas harbor. The only reason for that area's existence is that very lighthouse. My brother-in-law's family moved there to maintain that lighthouse. I envy the kind of history that they have, though sometimes that kind of history has its own unwanted truths spilled out...
It was nice to reconnect with my sister's sons again. I never developed a relationship with her daughter, the youngest, and this was the first time that we were in close quarters for an extended time. Invariably family relationships rise and ebb and her daughter was born when our relationship was strained. There are always high hopes . . . I hope these kids become an improvement over us, their predecessors.
It would have gone pretty uneventfully - the place is far more comfortable than last time I was there more than eight years past - but my brother-in-law chose to be an idiot in picking a fight with my brother. Suffice to say, the superior man subdues his anger without need for fighting; an inferior man looks for a chance to show his pride when there is no need. My brother-in-law could have been the superior man, but he stooped to the lower level. What a shame. And I thought he had grown up. Tsk, tsk.
I am glad, though, to have met one of the friends my sister turned to when her youngest Trixie was born. While I had no chance to unburden myself as I normally would have and listened to the concerns of other people, the sun and the fresh air helped a great deal to rejuvenate my emotional batteries. I got what the doctor ordered - a holiday and a tan. When we got back to Manila, I even had a double chance to unwind since my brother was checked in at the Pen. Hmmm... his Holy Week holiday isn't a bad idea.
Easter should be the most important Christian holiday but I have a theory why it's not as popular as Christmas - it's because the Easter date changes every year and the sense of anticipation is not the same.
Finally, I am so pleased that this week and the Easter holiday have validated the changes in my own life. Not all of the changes are good, and it would be foolish for me to expect that, but I'm glad all the same.
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