28 Years in Luzon

If you google the word 'Luzon' it is likely that you find out that it is the northern island group of the Philippines (it is also where the nation's capital city, Manila, is located).

All my life I have been confined to its boundaries. I have traveled Luzon well - going as far north as Vigan and as deep south as Legazpi, Albay (where perfect-coned Mayon is). I spent college in the local summer capital, Baguio. I know very well how the bus rides go that they have ingrained a certain form of solace for me. I faintly recall Adams' metaphors on travel in 'The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'. It describes travel as a form of, in my own words, existence stasis. It is a time where in an individual is condemned to a degree of losing control over how one spends his time. Like a deer caught in the glare of an oncoming truck (I don't know how many times I've used this idiom to analogize) a passenger is taken unawares with no room for choice. Some for of vacuum comes to life - isolating its victim from the happenings of what he leaves and what he is yet to be with. The idea of sojourning suggests that this vacuum is made of two main things: things that one is used to (mostly associated to place-of-origin) and things that you need to face (COD upon arrival).

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