Literary Traveler

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Back in the days when politics had not yet beset the city of Butuan living there was very simple, and that same simplicity made life beautiful. If you walked down the old cathedral alley you would hear Maya birds chirp somewhere in the trees and nests hidden high up on deep corners of the church. Once inside the chamber, a different silence would take over, and the shade someway, somehow gave you solace. Going out the huge main doorway, the sunlight struck you first and then the colorful view of the park flowed in from across the street, and in a strange way it makes you miss your dad, if he was so good to you, on Sunday mornings after mass- The popcorns, cotton candies and ice creams. They still sell corn on carts at the opposite corner. In a major intersection an old traffic light still hovers, almost too loosely, creating more traffic than if it had not been there at all. Then there are all kinds of shops along the street going to the right; renting one for two thousand pesos a month used to be just flat outrageous. Back in the days… when we barely had money on our pockets and life was great. Back in the days when there were no skywalks where drunks and the homeless shit at night.

I took the bus just across the street and headed for an alternative destination: A fourteen-hour route through Cagayan De Oro and Iligan City; taking the ferry to cross toward Ozamis and Dapitan before finally halting in a laid-back Dipolog City, where I checked-in at Tops. In the bus, the guy sitting next to me was a real talker; talking about all sorts of things like he knew all about it through and through. He complained occasionally about the driver or how uncomfortable he was, and went on demonstrating to his companion with a cloud of omniscience, brainstorming all possible angles in every discussion. He was chubby and appeared very confident. I peered through the window, facing left and drafted things spontaneously in my mind. I can’t agree more with what Steinbeck had to say about people like him.

People have many reasons to travel. Most of the time I travel to be alone. I travel with my wife, but traveling with her is different from traveling with someone else and giving up solitude ‘cause we are one and the same. We canceled our trip to Dakak the next day and decided to explore the city’s regular walk-of-life instead. There’s not much sense in staying on pampered places anyway. We rented a pair of scooters and blended with the locals.

In the afternoon, in a beach in Dapitan City, roughly thirty kilometers away, I bought a cheap bottle of beer from a local bar by the beach and walked outside with my bare feet to retire on a hammock. Its ends were tied on the trunk of two coconut trees. We were the only ones there and the sun was bright. I sat and thought ‘bout how the world would be entirely different if only we learned to listen, and talk only when the time is right. I lay there and studied Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I read a few pages of Thomas Hardy, and then finally settled with Hemingway, as always. I looked up to the sea and felt thirsty. From a distance the waves came slow and heavy, gaining speed closing in, breaking on the shore white and bubbly-- crystalline under the sun. I felt thirsty watching the waves break like sweet champagne.

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