There are goats outside
I just came from my sister's and from Manila and straight back to Baguio. I attended a lecture there, and talked with my adviser about my dissertation, scholarship application, therapy, and a lot of other helpful things to my head.
I've been meaning to wrap words around things I see whenever I'm traveling via bus by daytime, or walking around places - which I rarely do - since I'd rather be at home and work and read and other helpful and not so helpful things to my head.
There was a time when I walked five kilometers on the highway from Naguilian to Bauang, looking for a field of white reeds beyond the gap between two houses I saw a fleeting glimpse of on my way to San Fernando the day before. With nothing to do the day after, I set out to look for the field and take a picture. The road was winding and dusty, and of course I had white sneakers on. I was awful to my shoes that day, but it was worth it.
I saw fields of green almost yellow for the ripeness of crops. There was an endless parade of cows. I didn't hug one, for fear of what the farmers might think of a strange idiot hugging his livestock, but I was just happy looking. There was a billy goat hanging around mumping grass by what can only be called a "meadow" - although that's not a word you'd easily associate with a Philippine landscape (you'd more usually describe it as "mountainy," "hilly," "foresty," or "dirty"). There were detritus everywhere - a couch which you can tell was red when it was new but now was an anemic blend of magenta and bleached unattractive pink on the side of a radiator shop, a toy crucified among the knots in chicken wire fencing, several shoes without pairs, several shirts, and Hello Kitty memorabilia outside a house the entire theme of which is Hello Kitty. Even the gate is pink and had Hello Kitty's giant face on it in wrought iron. I can only imagine what the inside of the car parked in the garage looks like. What the fuck, ma'am. Or sir.
I took lots of pictures, except the one that mattered in that walk. I didn't find the field; though that momentary glimpse gave me all the elation in the world I associate with the peace of anchored freedom and flight.
Most times I see fleeting faces of pedestrians outside when I'm on the bus, or other passengers in other vehicles. There was something like a Scooby Doo van containing a group of bohemians, the girl riding shotgun lounging with her feet up with painted toenails, rendering her tattooed legs visible to passerby. I also see lots of construction work, and once I saw a pink truck pootling in a field of those same white reeds, happily carrying its load of aggregate.
When I'm a pedestrian, however, I don't look at people; I usually look over their heads to the distance or at their shoes. If they're in front of me, I find the soap dish created by the Achilles tendon fascinating the deeper it is. Sometimes I look up to see a face, and a few times I smile when I see a beautiful one. But only when the person's way past me. I can never remember these faces for more than a few minutes, because I don't look at faces for more than 10 seconds. That's why the predominant images in my head aren't faces - they're hardly even images. What I remember most is atmosphere, whether that of a word or a phrase, or an event, or the way sunshine falls on things. And then I wrap words around it if I want to commit it to memory.
For instance, while I was at the drugstore a while back, I walked past a man wearing high tops whose scent followed me only after I was a meter away. It's the scent of green raindrops, deep but not overwhelming; calm, and subtle. I can go on for hours remembering that in my head.
I can go for days in my head, even when I'm working. Taking bus rides and walking to places and seeing people - no matter how briefly, no matter how pointless or troublesome the errand - is a helpful thing. It takes you out of your head in a fundamentally different way than your head can take itself out of itself.
I've been meaning to wrap words around things I see whenever I'm traveling via bus by daytime, or walking around places - which I rarely do - since I'd rather be at home and work and read and other helpful and not so helpful things to my head.
There was a time when I walked five kilometers on the highway from Naguilian to Bauang, looking for a field of white reeds beyond the gap between two houses I saw a fleeting glimpse of on my way to San Fernando the day before. With nothing to do the day after, I set out to look for the field and take a picture. The road was winding and dusty, and of course I had white sneakers on. I was awful to my shoes that day, but it was worth it.
I saw fields of green almost yellow for the ripeness of crops. There was an endless parade of cows. I didn't hug one, for fear of what the farmers might think of a strange idiot hugging his livestock, but I was just happy looking. There was a billy goat hanging around mumping grass by what can only be called a "meadow" - although that's not a word you'd easily associate with a Philippine landscape (you'd more usually describe it as "mountainy," "hilly," "foresty," or "dirty"). There were detritus everywhere - a couch which you can tell was red when it was new but now was an anemic blend of magenta and bleached unattractive pink on the side of a radiator shop, a toy crucified among the knots in chicken wire fencing, several shoes without pairs, several shirts, and Hello Kitty memorabilia outside a house the entire theme of which is Hello Kitty. Even the gate is pink and had Hello Kitty's giant face on it in wrought iron. I can only imagine what the inside of the car parked in the garage looks like. What the fuck, ma'am. Or sir.
I took lots of pictures, except the one that mattered in that walk. I didn't find the field; though that momentary glimpse gave me all the elation in the world I associate with the peace of anchored freedom and flight.
Most times I see fleeting faces of pedestrians outside when I'm on the bus, or other passengers in other vehicles. There was something like a Scooby Doo van containing a group of bohemians, the girl riding shotgun lounging with her feet up with painted toenails, rendering her tattooed legs visible to passerby. I also see lots of construction work, and once I saw a pink truck pootling in a field of those same white reeds, happily carrying its load of aggregate.
When I'm a pedestrian, however, I don't look at people; I usually look over their heads to the distance or at their shoes. If they're in front of me, I find the soap dish created by the Achilles tendon fascinating the deeper it is. Sometimes I look up to see a face, and a few times I smile when I see a beautiful one. But only when the person's way past me. I can never remember these faces for more than a few minutes, because I don't look at faces for more than 10 seconds. That's why the predominant images in my head aren't faces - they're hardly even images. What I remember most is atmosphere, whether that of a word or a phrase, or an event, or the way sunshine falls on things. And then I wrap words around it if I want to commit it to memory.
For instance, while I was at the drugstore a while back, I walked past a man wearing high tops whose scent followed me only after I was a meter away. It's the scent of green raindrops, deep but not overwhelming; calm, and subtle. I can go on for hours remembering that in my head.
I can go for days in my head, even when I'm working. Taking bus rides and walking to places and seeing people - no matter how briefly, no matter how pointless or troublesome the errand - is a helpful thing. It takes you out of your head in a fundamentally different way than your head can take itself out of itself.
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