I used to believe epiphanies were stupid – just a cliche movie trope to make a character realize something without undergoing a long arduous task. I was proved wrong.
I’ve been up since 6:30am yesterday. For the record, yesterday was quite a bad day. Not the worst day in my life, mind, but still a bad day. I’m not going into specifics of what happened, just take my word – it was a bad day.
I preoccupied myself with mundane tasks of rewatching Rent, listening to sentimental songs, cleaning, just to avoid the greater task which is thinking about how to clear the mess I’ve created. And for almost 24 hours, that’s what I did, attempting to synthesize thoughts while doing workaday actions.
But I’ve had it. All I wanted to do was shout and freak out – let all the built-up frustration inside well-up in one powerful shout. But it’s 5am and I can’t really do that. I decided to take a stroll in UP by 6. And this is where the story begins.
It was never meant to be a ‘life-changing’ walk. It was supposed to be a stupid, ‘I-need-to-kill-time-before-the-mall-opens-at-10-am’ walk. I got off the jeepney and started walking around the oval. Suddenly I felt this urge to go to ASCAL. I stayed there a while. I sat at one of the mountain benches and slowly I found myself meditating. I felt relaxed. I felt the air around me, I felt the rush of the elements.
I am Aquarius, hence, I am Air. And that is how I meditated. Everything is but air – continuous around the world. I slowly let all the positivity in with a breathe and all the negativity with an exhale. Security in, doubts out. Confidence in, fears out. Personal growth in, immaturity out. Slowly I imagined myself turning into my element Air. I became air, on that bench on the ASCAL mountains. I could commune with the every breathe, every breeze, every gust that came. It was me. And all my problems could be blown away by it.
I started getting sleepy meditating so I got up. I felt a lot better, but not totally so. So I continued my walk around the oval. I came across the hang-out for one of my old organizations and I decided i miss staying there. On impulse, I went to the hang-out (no one was there) and sat there for a while thinking. Then a cat, whom I nicknamed ZEEKY, came.
At first we were just there, me petting the cat and the cat rubbing up against me. Then suddenly I had this urge to talk to the cat, to share my problems with the cat. And I did. I opened my mouth and formed cohesive words, phrases and sentences and told them to the cat. I told the cat everything. And the cat understood – when I came to the emotional part, he suddenly sprang up on the chairs and cuddled on my lap. It is therapeutic to tell all your problems to a cat. However, there will come a point when you say:
“Cat, what am I supposed to do next?”
And it just stares at you and meows. Then I did a really weird thing.
“Cat I don’t think you understand me. Let me translate. Meow, meow, meow, meow, depression, meow, meow, meow, meow, confusion, meow, meow, meow, love.” And I did that by the way – I translated the whole story into meows and key words.
Then a fat man with food came and Zeeky left me. Traitor.
I left the org hang-out much more refreshed. I had relaxed myself with meditation and I had purged myself by ranting to Zeeky. I felt everything become clearer now. I could see the trees, the roads, the tennis court in a whole new light. I felt so small, like a leaf in a tree, yet so connected to every single leaf, every single root, every single tree there.
I continued the trek and I came upon this old man by the Carillion. He was doing a sword-dance routine by himself. I suppose it was some sort of ritual. I sat there, transfixed.
It wasn’t a brilliant sword-fight, or even a movement piece. In fact the way he brandished the sword seemed very tai-chi – very fluid, very slow. Millimeter by millmeter, he moves the sword. And when he maks a single mistake, he repeats the routine from the top. I sat there for almost half an hour just watching him. I imagined I was the old man using the sword, a weapon of mass destruction yet wielding it with finesse and grace that tiptoes the line of the ethereal and the cosmic.
After a while, I left. I decide to walk home. I came across this vendor selling taho and it made me realize how much I miss taho. I can’t even remember the last time I had taho! I bought a cup and ate it while slowly walking home. There was something there, something earthy, something very Filipino that I enjoyed.
On the way home I realized some things: (1) Before I did the walk, my initial plan was to become a cold bitch. After the walk, I began to see other perspectives and realized that mine may not be the perfect one. (2) We have to take care of ourselves every once in a while. It’s easy to lose track of what matters to us when we immerse ourselves. (3) Sometimes, we need to take time off from our lives to reexamine it. My walk was not a deep walk. Come on, sitting on a park bench to become air, talking to a cat, watching an old man play with swords and eating taho. That’s very everyday.
But there’s something about this walk.
Made me realize, life is so meaningless, so fruitless, so devoid of purpose. Yet, life is so fucking beautiful.
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