I took these photos the night after spending my whole afternoon one weekend at a coffee shop to catch up with some check work and progress on some personal goals. These were taken after a rain session stopped so the streets were still wet and glistening. I captured these in hopes of sharing the authenticity of my hometown on Hive.
The streets were empty, and I was walking alone. It's just the right recipe for thoughts of different depths to flee in and out of my head, accompanied by the usual melancholic nostalgia as I walked the streets of town city that raised me.
Flashbacks came of walking home from school carrying my textbooks and stationary, of the lane where my mom or grandma held my hand as we walked home from church, of the bulalo-an where a schoolmate of mine used to greet me every time we pass by, of the Christopher Columbus statue, of the elementary school where several hauntings were said to take place, of the corner where I used to buy taho when I could catch the street vendor, of the drive where my high school friends and I, in our early twenties, used to do "not-so-responsible" things, of the Balite tree of Jacinto Borja street and the urban legends that surround it.
After spending 7 years in Cebu and only coming home for vacation days, this place changed in few, unrecognizable ways but still embody the same spirit.
I don't know if its the seasonal melancholia I regularly get every year, or maybe it's just another wave of pandemic-induced blues.
Like all Filipino places, the streets used to be alive with the holiday spirit as early as September. Houses used to light up with parols and Christmas lights, Jose Mari Chan's "Christmas In Our Hearts" would be playing in the background and children used to ring several doorbells and sing carols for some spare change or snacks:
Kasadya ning taknaa
Dapit sa kahimayaan
Mao ray among makita
Ang panagway nga masanagon
Bulahan ug bulahan
Ang tagbalay nga giawitan
Awit nga halandumon sa tanang Pasko
Magmalipayon! --Kasadya ning Taknaa
Understandably, I see less of these now given the global situation. However, it makes me happy when I pass by a few houses of families and small businesses who choose to keep the holiday spirit alive. Parols, Christmas trees and a Belen were still set up at a Tuslob Buwa restaurant at a corner near my house.
It made me realize that despite the frequent frustrations and disappointments I have been experiencing (this year specifically), about the Filipino-run system, the elections, how the country is being run and torn apart by collective mismanagement, lack of accountability, lack of unity, lack of scientific and digital literacy, negligence and indifference that I have to admit, have been made all too common and considered a default setting, because of our known Filipino traits like crab mentality, the manyana habit (procrastination), ija-ija, ahu-ahu (every man for himself), bahala na ("whatever be, will be") mentality and the like, leading me to a point this year to rethink sometimes about the value of being Filipino being associated with this kind of image people see in Filipinos, and while I know that my dreams and young ambitions might lead me to places outside my hometown, possibly even outside the bounds of my cultural comfort zones, the map of Tagbilaran City and its familiar streets will always be written in my Tagbilaranon Boholana Filipina heart, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else.
Roxanne Marie is the twenty-year-old something who calls herself the Protean Creator.
She is a chemical engineer by profession, pole-dancer and blogger by passion and frustration, and lastly, a life enthusiast. She is on a mission to rediscover her truth through the messy iterative process of learning, relearning and unlearning. Currently, she works as a science and research instructor in her hometown, Tagbilaran City, all the while documenting her misadventures, reflections and shenanigans as a working-class millennial here on Hive.
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