Hovering

Welcome back to Manila. Back to the frowning masses, back to streets awash with cars. Back to each disappointing sunrise and the endless wait for sunsets. Welcome, friend welcome. Lay your head here awhile, to the side, rest its weight upon your own shoulders and worry about stiffness later. You've left too late and come back to soon to your own life, the one you've been working on for so long. And though it's the only thing you've ever known, the only thing you're good at, you wonder if, out there, there's still some other life you could live.

I've been tempted lately by thoughts of disappearing, but not in the kidnap-gone-awry-then-suddenly-cadavers kind of sense. Instead, wandering off unexpectedly and getting lost to the world seems like a lovely plan. I'm starting to feel like most of the things in my life are things I agree to do but don't feel entirely compelled to pursue. It's like playing the music of my instrument on someone else's beat and cadence.

Mind you, I'm not resentful or frustrated. Things are actually good. Not great. But relative to genocide, sudden unemployment and elections, preferably a-ok. The recurring thought that pokes some mischief into me though is that I feel that if you left me to my own devices, somewhere far away where no one knows me and no one cares, I'd be making completely different decisions. Somewhere out there is a life I could have if I just decide, wholeheartedly and completely to abandon this one.

This has nothing to do with the friends I've known, the family I've grown with and the people I've discovered. There is no individual repellent. It's just that I like playing with odds and, lately, I've been playing it safe too long. It's time to walk out that door, commute towards the opposite direction, and make things interesting.

That's the last thing Jesus did if you remember, the great (though inconsistent) disappearing act that culminated with a certain heaven-bound hovering. I guess for Him, gravity was just a suggestion and, just like me, it may seem absolute now, but hey! He did it anyway, doves and dramatic lighting included. It can be done! We have the technology! I just need some guts.

He kind of died first though. Let's just mark that milestone as "pending".

Like a Lover's Voice Fires the Mountainside

It was dark, of course, as I wearily crept up the stairs and found my seat overlooking the stage. I watched tonight's band setting up gingerly in the dim gloom on that Thursday evening. The place was still empty but I knew the crowds would come. The long-weekend starts tomorrow after all and the week's passing deserves some music, some drinks, and some unsuppressed revelry. God knows I needed some of it, too, but the reason for tonight's romp was mostly foreign. My overseas sister flew in earlier this week and she's been craving for some live music, live 80's music.

Which was a happy coincidence considering we originally intended--and I originally hoped--to watch the wonderful local group SPIT for tonight. They canceled tonight's show though. So to save the evening's festivities and with the weight of 2 laptop bags slung over my shoulder, I stepped out of the office and slowly trudged towards those neon-light infused streets just a city block away. A few minutes later, I called the family up and told them, "Yes, they're playing 80's tonight." In the background, I heard my sister's squeal in delight rise above the cellphone static. I was glad for her, it was her night after all.

I also had an hour to burn before the show started, before the family could make it through the clogged Makati streets, and before I had to meet up my friend all the way back in Glorietta. So, I started walking towards the commercial district, started to join the faceless crowds marching home, and caught up with myself and how the week has been.

The week has been tiring. But this was welcome fatigue, a sort of cherished exhaustion that came for spending every second of your life doing something you knew would propel you forward. Something you knew would define your life in hindsight, something chapter-worthy, if you'd write an autobiography. This new chapter was about the new job.

The new job deserves some talk. It was exciting work since we were, even as developers, working so close to the front-lines(the marketing people talked to US). Our work had such a direct impact on the project, and the project itself is a behemoth of technologies, constantly growing in size and capabilities. We weren't attaching little diodes or fancy fenders to this thing either. We were building it from the ground-up, attaching the arms, legs and head to what will soon be an industry changer--at least that's what marketing says. I agree, but we still have a long way to go.

"We'll get there," I thought to myself as I tried to ignore the band starting to play downstairs and my sister gyrating inconspicuously in her seat next to me. I didn't know how I'll get there, what I'd be doing in the critical weeks thereafter, but I knew I just had to trust in my own strength, in the teams strength, and in fate who hasn't let me down yet.

And then they started playing my music, my music of all things. Of all places here, in the darkness, on a random Thursday night, beneath the swirl of the disco ball and glint of neon lights, among foreign foreigners and familiar family, in this nondescript bar in the middle of Makati, my song found me.

Life taught me something that night. We live like the nightclub anonymous, distant from the throb and hubbub on-stage as we drink our lonely drinks and forcefully drown the responsibilities, problems, issues we've left outside in the night. We may have friends with us on the table, people who relate, people who sympathize, who share our drink and our fears. We stare beyond the brim of icy glasses, at life in all it's whirling colors, in its upbeat rhythm, in its perpetual dancing, and think, "Why bother."

And then they play your song, and you can't help but stand, can't help but surrender to serendipity. You start to move with the beat, simply trust that it all leads somewhere worthwhile. The music consumes you, and you celebrate, even for a short while. You spin and spin on the temporary momentum of joy. We raise our glasses in the air, in defiance against transition, in challenge against change, and shout, "Why not?"

Life's a playlist. It may be long, and it may seem like it's set at random most of the time. But our song is there somewhere, and it'll play eventually, and it'll eventually all be alright. And definitely, it'll be fun.