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.