I was browsing through some of my old works looking for some spark to inspire me in my current mini-project and came across this piece. I miss myself, or to put it correctly, I miss the me who wrote this memoir a couple of years ago.
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(first published in Pinoycentric.com)
By The Beach
The Perfect Meal
A melange of colors, a contrast of flavors and the wind brushing our faces. The sand is our table, her blue sarong our mat. We spread out our packed lunch of simple home cooked food out on the sarong-covered sand. The fragrant, slightly heated banana leaves set between us . We put away the plastic utensils and eat with our hands. Aaah how bare yet elegant it is. The vegetables cooked simply but with understanding, with that innate respect for freshness that an Ilocana gives to her pinakbet.
Ah, pinakbet. I have been dreaming of you for the past months. I take the first bite, and there it is–an implosion of salty sweetness. The mild flavor of squash and eggplant, the crispy crunch of young bean stalks, okra’s unmistakable texture, meaty slivers of bagnet (fried pork akin to the tagalog lechon kawali), and sweet chewy, heavenly slices of Kamote broiled in a potful of tomatoes and bagoong Ilocos. There is just a hint of pork lard, perhaps drizzled at the last minute to add that unmistakable meaty flavor, the same way my Grandmother used to do.
We glow and smile foolishly with each bite.
My friend is so taken with the the pork adobo, which is not saucy or swimming in soy sauce. Instead it is slightly crispy–with a sharp and tangy garlic flavor. It is the adobo of my childhood. Slightly oilier than the tagalog version and redolent with the flavor of fried garlic and sukang Iloko.
We eat facing the beach. Our hands and mouths glistening with adobo grease. Each of us silent, drowning our senses with the experience - the flavors of garlic and stewed vegetables, the salty air, the sun’s rays on our bare skin, and the expanse of palm fronds framing the sea.
We sigh with silent appreciation. She exclaims “This is by far the best meal of my life”. I smile in agreement. This is more than that, really, this is an experience. Something like a new standard for our next adventures. And we giggle and laugh at the thought of new places to explore, how this moment is priceless, gazing out at the blue horizon, how there’s no one else but us, as if this place was a gift, a paradise for us alone to experience.
Voices at Sea
And the sea talks to us, like a third person. A wise man who hides himself and talks to us with his soul, his waves, the blue green fingers leading us to introspection.
After the meal we settle to a makeshift, barebones cottage with two long wooden benches. We limber and find our own spaces and lie down on our chosen benches. We speak softly of our dreams and despair, of what those past months have done to us. We are at peace here, just two old friends reconnecting and sharing each other’s pain and happiness after months of living separate lives. We watch the water break through the driftwood on the shore, and she remarks how easy it is to be content in this place. How trivial and unremarkable we are in the face of such beauty.
I blurt out without thinking, this place makes me want to fall in love. We look at each other and laugh like hyenas. The beach is such a perfect backdrop for romance but we are only two girls on a secluded beach. And like waves, our longing washes to the surface. We have been through this before, this talk on love and living alone, the why’s and why-nots. How last night we sang ourselves silly, belting out an endless stream of love songs at the shoreline, uninhibited and dazed by the perfect moonlit seascape, and fortified by half a bottle of good old Matador brandy. Aaaah. the travails of two single girls with a streak for adventure and a lust for romance.
And yet here by the beach, looking at our routines from a distance, we realize that we lead pretty substantial lives. Good jobs, a passion (mountaineering for her, writing for me). How we are bounded by our ideas of happiness–contentment, a stable family life, our common need for adrenaline rushes, and the dream of exploring as much of this world as possible.
We watch the calm break into a cascade of waves, and something inside us understands that this cycle of calmness and chaos, of disquiet and peace stands for some truth, a metaphor for the flow of our lives. There are thousands of conversations you can pull out of the sea– about failing, or discontent, even sex, or the fluidity of our wants and how sometimes a crash is what we really need to understand ourselves.
In the end, we are left reassured that no matter how small we sometimes feel, the sea which is grand yet secretive, rich and giving, turns our voices into a hush of introspection. That in the scheme of things, we can only be who we are, imperfect but nevertheless special, and in some ways important to each other and to those we have loved and they who loved us back.
And yes, sometimes we long for that missing piece to drift into our lives but we find that here by the sea, it takes only so little to make one happy.
Waiting
And then we gave way to silence and found ourselves being lulled by the crashing waves and the happy lilt of sea birds. Our eyes closing to daylight in this secluded and still undeveloped strip of white sand beach somewhere in Pagudpud, a place so aptly called by the locals as the Blue Lagoon. We lounge with the hope of yet unseen splendor, and sleep with the promise of a beautiful sunset.
