Home & Wired

Even as friends and I were going home from our sweet escape to Baguio, I was beginning to feel the symptoms of a flu. Initially, I panicked my guts out thinking not AH1N1! As soon as we arrived in Manila, I made a checklist of the symptoms for the virus: headache, check; diarrhoea, check; fever of sudden onset, check…Damn! I took the Monday and Tuesday off from work, and like an addict, welcomed the relief pills gave me. Wednesday, I was back at the Office and had more energy than the energizer bunny. I had two days of rest, if you can properly call it that, which I don’t because running to the loo every now and then and getting uncomfortable chills from the fever every night hardly make it rest as defined in the dictionary. A day back at work and the headache stroke back with a vengeance. I need a long break. Besides, once I am seated at my work desk, rest becomes a non-existing word.

Happiness was what I felt when my boss affixed his signature to my leave form.

Him: Where are you going to take your vacation?

Me: In my town.

Him: Good, you need to rest. You’re sickly.

Great.

I finished everything days before Tuesday, 24th of November, so I won’t have to panic myself with pleadings and destroy the whole concept of a vacation. So my mind was in a pleasant state of blankness when I seated myself on the bus. I’m going home! I’ve always been grateful to have been born in my town – not just any town, but my town where time seems to be on a standstill. The serenity of the surroundings and the leisurely pace of almost everything moving transport me to a whole different universe. I know once I get back in the City, I’ll be disoriented and it’ll be a whole day before I get my groove back, but heck, an escape to my town is worth it.

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Coming home felt different. When I looked out from the window of the jeepney, took in the lush green of the fields, and inhaled the freshness of the cool provincial air, I was hit hard in my stomach with the realization that at one time, last August, I came back to the town with a heavy heart. The ancestral house looked cold and dreary without grandma…

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I just paid a visit to Our Lady of Piat. The town of Piat is a 15-minute drive away from my town and I make it a point to visit Our Lady whenever I come home. I took my dad’s white pick-up and while driving it, I got a few smiles and waves from my parents’ acquaintances which I was obliged to return like a politician’s daughter. The drive to Piat proved to be leisurely and uneventful – if you don’t count the stop I had to make while a rafter of turkeys decided whether or not they  would cross the street. They eventually didn’t, which made me wonder why the chicken did cross the street? Or the sudden swerve I had to make because a dog thought it cute to shit in the middle of the highway.

Anyway, I’m back home, alone but not at all bored. Movie marathon time ;)