In the Company of Strangers

lost and found

by Jeneen R. Garcia
Published in May 2007


On Sundays, I’ve learned, the two-kilometer academic oval in the UP Diliman campus connecting the Oblation monument to the edge of the Sunken Garden is closed to vehicles both public and private. On this sacred day, joggers and bikers rule the road.

And not just college students clad in shorts and running shoes wanting to stay fit. Aged 3 to 63, small, tall, thin, and large, leather shoes, rubber shoes, slippers, and sandals, bicycles, tricycles, baby strollers, walkers--the diversity of UP’s Sunday exercise crowd spans the spectrum of middle-class society on a break from the necessity of a workaday routine.

Serendipity has brought me back to Manila this summer, almost ten years since I was a student calling it my transitory home. To this--a late Sunday afternoon walking across the wildness and the oldness of UP’s cracked sidewalks and grassy fields, which I have always preferred to my own university’s well-kept lawns and modern buildings.

Happy, sweaty faces walk past me in a slow-motion blur. I bask in the same exhilaration that fills them at the sight of this long, long avenue shaded by acacia trees, in my mind stretching once again to endless possibility.

I walk at an even pace on the center of the road; fathers and daughters share laughter in the right lane. Further along the way, a toddler learning to run, two sisters taking turns at a bicycle. A grandmother alights from the curb to join the stream of motion.

I am alone, as I have always been for as long as I can remember. But lonely? How can one be in this tacit celebration of space and pure movement? I find solace in the nameless faces passing by me. A smile or a nod, perhaps, sometimes not even a glance. And on we go on our way. No judgment of past failures or future capacities, for we are strangers, after all: we know nothing of each others’ lives. Only the comforting thought that we are fellow travelers on the same journey, though our parallel paths may never intersect.

Before I reach the end of the road, the sun sets orange through the leaves of the hundred-year old acacia trees. The road is dark now. I can barely make out the bobbing heads of the people walking ahead of me. The cool of twilight descends, the sky turns lucent blue, the sodium lights come on one by one, casting shadows on the streets.

I rest on the steps looking out on the highway, the headlights of cars coming and going the only sign of humanity. Out there, somewhere. People coming home from work, sitting down to dinner, thinking perhaps of the next day and the next, each one blending into the other. As for me, I have many miles to go living out of a backpack, walking with this familiar strangeness I now call home.

Comments

  1. It's nice to read from you again. =)

    ReplyDelete
  2. One Sunday morning, a significant person and I decided to run around the Oval and loose weight. After an hour of jogging, we went to the nearest stall and bought fish balls. And kwek-kwek. And squid balls. And a bottle of C2 each. The following Sunday, we realized UP Oval is not really helpful for weight loss. Oh... this is what the magical Oval does to me.

    I was refreshed by your post. Heard from the groups that you're in Manila, Ms. Jetsetter. =)

    ReplyDelete
  3. HUG. welcome to what was once my world. =)
    you should come during the monsoon--
    when the acacia leaves fill the streets and dance to the wind.

    i hope things are going well for you and that your trips last week(?).
    we'll be doing research "together" again soon, metaphorically speaking. =)
    off to meet my supervisors...

    HUGS,
    jemi

    ReplyDelete
  4. love this line....reading your thoughts is just like reading my daily reflection guide...keep posting!

    ReplyDelete
  5. im sorry the breakfast didn't push through :-( i'm on leave friday, that's tomorrow, but i know you're leaving thursday. so sayang talaga...

    ReplyDelete
  6. you are such a gifted writer. I love reading your journals.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ah the magic oval ;-) i'm sure it's a lot more magical when you're with someone else.


    you'll never guess where i've been. hope we can meet up along with the other ES!

    ReplyDelete
  8. yes, the world i've always wanted to be part of. who knows, i might be based in manila for awhile to do my lab analysis. just not sure now if i'll do it first sem or second sem =)

    wishing you the best in your scientific forays too =)

    ReplyDelete
  9. yes, too bad =( sige lang, will be back naman, i think. and i believe i'll be staying a couple of months, so that's a lot of sundays =)

    ReplyDelete
  10. thanks, beryl, aileen and jean! =) will really, really try my best to write more often. it's shameful how i shut out the stirrings and spend too much time on other less important things =P

    ReplyDelete
  11. swapped orders. music that heals tired bodies and calm restless souls. red wine that induces sneeze. an unhibited performance by an artist, and a song he wrote just for our home. a legendary singer in braids making a quick spill of a trademark 70s OPM hit (bayad-utang daw). a largely female audience. a familiar face. an accidental meeting of fellows of the same writeshop. An ex-anime, now Filipina and singing.
    One good night of real good company courtesy of one fine woman who never fails to amaze me.

    ReplyDelete
  12. hey cris =) saw joey again last night and bought his two albums na. kwento tayo next time ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. i know you're not talking to me, but which two albums would that be? =)

    HUGS,
    jemi

    ReplyDelete
  14. kitakits soon --- I will be back in Manila on the 6th. maybe, if you are still there dun tayo kuwentuhan...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Basta May Saging and RAW =) still don't have that one you were looking for =(

    ReplyDelete
  16. oops... will be in cebu na by the 9th, dumaguete by the 10th =( sayang, will be doing an article pa naman sana sa south, kaya lang maaga alis mo e.

    ReplyDelete
  17. i will be back in Manila on the 6th. hirit ako uli... maybe my area, Manila?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Stranger piping in.

    Sundays are my favorite days at the Academic Oval. It is then when I see that UP is more than just an academic university, and more than just about the iskolars. On Sunday mornings, scholarship does not own UP and what creates the UP atmosphere is its unconditional entry to persons and individuals--families, friends, strangers. That welcome is what made me truly appreciate UP as my new home away from home.
    Sunday mornings are the best, with sunlight streaming through the canopies of Diliman trees, forming protective arches for the thriving community that walk, breathe, and live below, invading the streets, owning them. The very sight makes me desire to live myself, to walk or jog and be part of the run wherever it may take me.

    Stranger exiting.

    ReplyDelete
  19. hello, stranger =) thank you for your thoughts. very much appreciated. i envy you for being witness to (and taking part of) that throbbing life and living, breathing (perspiring hehe) democracy every week.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boljoon: More Reasons to Return

Being Brown... again

It Ain’t Easy Being Brown