Dancing

There are so many subjects that I’d probably get a C- in, and dancing just happens to be one of them. I barely scraped past PE 2, and I’m not exactly dance troupe material. Sure, I can pick up a step or two. But the thing is, I just don’t have the passion. And the grace.

So when I got a message inviting those who cared to join to a production-number practice, I was a no-show. Apparently, so was everybody else. This merited a second, more demanding, message: we had to dance, period.

As it turned out, not even two left feet, or stiff joints made stiffer still by the passage of time, could stop us from strutting our stuff. On the first day of practice, there were groans as limbs on the verge of arthritis were stretched and extended and exercised. On the second day, what passed for dancing took on more rhythmic patterns. Third-day practice was sidetracked as the much younger—and sprightlier trainer—begged off, leaving us a mass of uncoordinated, hyperventilating mess.

We’re doing the dance again later today. Crazy, but everyone seems to be excited. We’d probably never pull it off, but then it’s not so much perfection were after as the chance to reconnect, to laugh at our past and present selves.

Call time is roughly two weeks from now. Call it temporary insanity, or call it a manifestation of strength in numbers, but this time, I am very much in on the dance.

Ahh, Summer!

Summer started while we were out on field. All throughout the morning, the beach was a constant presence. We could hear the waves--could even feel the soft breeze--from where we were. But there was work to do, and the beach had to take a backseat.

At 1p.m., when the crowd started thinnning out and nothing remained of the just-in-from-the-sea lunch, we rounded the corner and there it was: the white sands of Paguriran.





It was low tide when we got there. The bigger outcrop--which on high tide becomes a lagoon--was within wading distance. The powder-fine sand was a treat for sore feet. The afternoon sun was just perfect, and so was the catch.




Paguriran could very well be Boracay, except that it has none of the the crowds, the amenities, the nightlife and the commercialism of it all. Which is just perfect, if you ask me.

For the past days, we'd been drenched by heavy rains. With a quick trip to the beach and an hour of watching the turn of the tide, summer is finally here!

Wishing Away the Flab

I blew the dust off a boxful of 25-year-old photographs, and now I am quashing the urge to max my imaginary credit card on all the slimming gadgets on Home Shopping Network. Having gone from skinny to solid--and altogether missing "sexy" by a mile--I now understand why people actually worship Belo and Calayan :p

The slimming frenzy going on in the office does not help any. Girls who think they have weight problems have suddenly regained horizontal spaces, thanks to this Chinese slimming coffee. The thing is, I love coffee and I don't want any other flavor messing with my poison. Not even if gives me Bebe Gandanghari's figure. Also, I am not about to trust my excess pounds to something whose fine print totally escapes me.

Which leaves me wishing away the flab and not physically doing something about it. If I had known that I would develop bulges when I tipped the Big Four-O, I wouldn't have made candy out of Propan in my skinny days.

Oh well. Life.

Turning SIlver

Our 25th high school reunion is up in a few weeks. I thought it would be a cinch: we've been working on the homecoming for over a year now. But with reality staring us in the face, I am having some sort of a panic attack. As I'm sure the rest of the class are.

The panic comes mostly from the details that we have to wade through. Reunions are a tall order in these parts, especially for the silver belles and boys. Aside from planning the activities for our batch, we are also expected to host the grand alumni homecoming. That's roughly 70 batches, not counting those who have since moved on to more celestial reunions.

But queasy feeling aside, there is also the heady anticipation of being with old friends once more. Some of them I haven't seen since graduation, when we sat under the scorching afternoon sun and patiently waited as 700 plus graduates marched up the stage to get the rolled-up bond paper that summed up four years of our lives.

We have all changed, that’s for sure. Most of the girls have taken on new, sometimes-hyphenated, surnames. As the years piled up, so did the inches on the waist and the excess poundage in the most unflattering places.

We have all become what our school paper painted us to be: the salt of the earth. We have taken forked roads and have since realized that graduations are merely beginnings. That high school is but one of life’s many phases.

Still and all, it would be fun to go back to the old school. Already, we have unboxed old photographs and memories. It’s like going back in time, and getting to know our mirror images of 25 years ago.

Surely, this business of turning silver is a journey worth taking.

Rex Smith ... and Rey Valera!

In the era of Teen Beat and Tiger Beat, Rex Smith was my all-time poster boy. His posters--magazine centerfolds, of course--adorned my bedroom walls, crowding out my sister's Scott Baios, Shaun Cassidys and Leif Garretts. We were young and TV-less, and magazines and second-run movies were our only connections to the world outside. Albums, singles and cassettes, too.

"Forever" and "Let's Make a Memory," are such lame songs. Corny even. I realize that now. But lately I've been having a bad case of last-song syndrome. And all because Rex Smith is all over media town. Obviously, he has joined the ranks of (formerly famous) foreign acts who have found a ready Valentine audience in good old Pinas.

Truth to tell, I was almost tempted to make the trip to Manila. Better yet, to Bacolod or Cebu. Oh, to go back to the heady days of the early '80s, when I thought Street Hawk was the coolest show ever! Alas, traveling isn't the spur-of-the-moment, pack-up-and-go thing that it once was. And so it was a trip down memory lane instead, where I realized that I may not remember the name of the person with whom I shook hands just minutes ago, but I could very well remember the lyrics of almost thirty years ago. Talk about selective memory, huh?

In any case, it's not just "Simply Jessie" that's forever playing in my internal player. Ate Dina's "favorites" have been rubbing off on my daughter, and the three-year-old has taken to belting out Rey Valera's "Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo." As in.

Tree House

Gianna saw it first: the tree house on Seventh Street. Sitting on the sturdy branches of a mango tree, it hinted of blustery summers: of kites and blue skies and magical childhood days. Checking on the tree house became a routine--and Gianna and I would often dream of the time when our own mango tree is big enough to hold up our own tree house.

The other day, though, there was no more tree house to check on. It had been unused too long, said the man who built it for his two kids. The children are long gone, rebuilding their lives in faraway places. He is too old to climb, and there is little chance that the grandchildren would ever come home.

And so, he tore down the tree house. Better a cleaner skyline, he said, than a lonely structure that rings with memories of days lone gone.

Years ago, when the country was on a building frenzy, I felt a sinking sense of loss when they tore down a graceful mansion in QC to give rise to one of those impersonal developments. The house belonged to a president.

It was the same loss I felt when a they took down a quaint house along West Avenue. The same loss I feel now with the old tree house.

Alas, some of the monuments of our lives are not meant to last.

My Way

Yet more reasons why I love traveling this road: blue mountains, green trees and zero traffic.

Going home at the end of the day is one stress-free ride.