You know it when summer has ended. You hear it with the gentle rustling of leaves. You feel it breathing over your skin, when fine drizzle cools the air with a blanket of mist. It taps on your rooftop, sometimes with a jazzy beat when raindrops fall on quiet evenings, and it carries with it stories of the sea when westerly winds blow and the heavens loom with billowy clouds.
There is no escaping: The monsoon season marches forth leaving sun-kissers hiding under the shade. Gone are the days when azure skies leave happy campers dreaming and the masses whining how scorched the ground was and how infernal their days were.
I wish there is more time. But I've spent my sunny days thinking about my nowhere destination. People have become pilgrims in strange lands - island hopping until their pockets all become empty, while my arching roots barely moved from my spot.
Meanwhile, the rain-bathers frolic, as the sun shies behind the clouds. Drenched but with smiles, they welcome the downpour like a long lost friend. Rivers swell with torrents of water. Lighting knifes across the horizon. Thunder claps not far in the distance.
But there's no denial, the earth feels more alive.
And as the runaway typhoon waltz across the land, seen by man-made machines darting across space, I leave my hopes floating - like a kite defying the wind shears that would bring it to the ground. It's been a year since I stepped foot outside of the city, a trio more since the soles of my feet last pressed against the grains of sand.
But as long as wet leaves give off this pine scent in places where they grow and moist soil wafts still under my often clogged nose.
As long as I find greens sprouting in cracks along the concrete, and the neglected plants in my driveway hold back the creeping certainty of withering; A summer's encore would just be an excuse to keep dreaming that one day,
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| Palaui Island, Philippine Daily Inquirer |
I too will find myself back to the shore.