The unrelenting heat, the abundance of golden mangoes being hawked on the streets, and the temptation of fluids, cold juices of melon and buko, the sensation of skin against the salinity of the sea. And you know that yes, Summer is finally here.
To my mind, there is nothing more summery than this: a chance to escape the suffocating concrete-and-ads-heavy city life for a few blissful days in the province. To wake up to the rooster’s call surrounded by greenery, to dawdle at a swing on midmornings, to sway to your own rhythm, and then engage in chatters and gossips with the cousins amidst a feast of green mangoes, sineguelas, singkamas and lomboy dipped in salt or Ilocos vinegar. To trek your way to the farm, muddied foot and all, and gather tomatoes, okra, and patani for dinengdeng, to check the corn for a few ears to be broiled for merienda.How on a Friday, the family takes the forty minute trip to the local beach for an afternoon of sea.
In a few days time I am going home to Ilocos for my last summer escape before returning to the working world. I am filled with anticipation, the memory of too many summers spent there as a child. Climbing trees, going on afternoon expeditions with my cousins to the farm, the thrill of discovering a fruit-heavy guava tree. How we filled our mouths with local fruits picked along the way--- damortis, chico, kamias, and kamatsile.
Of puppy loves developed during the summers and the earnest but inevitably unfulfilled promises of keeping in touch and seeing each other next summer. Of escapades to the beach in the afternoon. Spending the nights chatting , playing truth or consequence, or alone on the rooftop enjoying the cool wind and the din of the radio playing Ilocano radionovelas. How one looks forward to the annual town fiesta for the local pageants and the bazaar of goods and foods that it brings. It is funny how my most vivid memories growing up are from those two months of summer I spent in my parents’ hometown year after year.
There is in that place an unhurried sense of living, a creed to enjoy the moment, that inspite of a bad harvest or any other unforeseen catastrophe, the people you meet greet you with a smile, bearing their lucks or misfortunes with an earnestness, an almost bahala na attitude, a laughing but still hopeful resignation that is a refreshing change from the cynical, do-or-die attitude that is so pervasive in the city.
And so I look forward to my four days of summer vacation in my hometown. To the taste of fresh, authentic pinakbet prepared by an aunt, to spend the afternoons walking through the town, playing with my nieces or visiting the farm. And the chance to make a visit to the sea before the sun-drenched days end.
