because i got high

i had an immersionmate who was jokingly hoping weed would be part of our igorot community weekend. rice wine was the closest he could get to a euphoric high.

weeds, though, were what my tatay dani said was the cause for the rashes i currently am annoyingly experiencing, post-immersion.

and so if i could change everything that has happened in calisitan, nueva ecija, i would change only one--my not bringing of caladryl or any anti-itch stuff. apparently, off lotions only repel insects not plants. note to self.

high too were the hills. and i know other immersioners might have experienced longer walks than what i went through but i will not be ashamed to declare that i really had a hard time. i told the group i was pretty confident coming in, aware of my trekking experiences back in high school and as a boy scout. but maybe because i haven't been exercising the past few years or maybe because our house was literally another mountain away, i did have a hard time.

which only led to a conclusion: this should not be.

tatay danny and nanay emerlyn soriano had 6 kids. the oldest child was 13 years old while the youngest was but a month old.

after the program last saturday, which started at around 6pm while the sun was setting and ended around midnight, we had to walk home again. it took us almost an hour and we were very thankful the moon was shining bright. i was scared to bits and was half-hoping the program would last until dawn or later so we didn't have to walk home in the dark. but we did, with 5 small kids and a baby and a flashlight.

going home or back to the community center always reminded me of that two towers scene where the fellowship would walk on top of mountain ranges, that path right on top wherein falling on either side would be like hurting your self so many times over. a little slip would really go a long way.

it would be the same path three of the kids would go through twice a day to school and back home. tatay danny shares how his kids are rather anti-social for the sheer reason that their closest neighbors are a mountain away. but he would rather live here than in la union where he was from. he says he'd rather be here where water was free-flowing and where they own a piece of land.

which makes me doubt my conclusion. this should not be, yes. but maybe only for me because i was the only one having a hard time (truth is i was always the reason why treks would take an hour and half thanks to all the breaks i would request). the family seems happy and the kids they laugh a lot. or maybe because they have weird visitors who take forever to scale a mountain.

truth is i really don't know. all i'm sure of is that i'm real grateful tatay danny shared his story, his home, his experiences.

rehearsals for bluerep's stages of love has just started and i have several books lined up already but this christmas break would be filled with breaks just thinking about the soriano family and how nonoy, the month old baby, could live without fear of typhoid fever (something his kuyas and ates all went through) or without fear of falling of the tracks (a thought that made me shiver so much).

evsem or immersion or some conference up north, every time i'm on a bus and i realize we're approaching balintawak or north avenue or that last nlex tollgate, a heavy feeling of longing, almost a hunger pang, to go back and stay a little longer always overwhelms me and i try to overcome it with the thought that i still have so much time before me, that God works in weird surprising ways, that it is okay, that your bed is waiting.

no one really needs weed.