road trip

before going up north for some post-noche buena inuman i drove around alabang--and i realized that the reason why (apart from the crap-now-i'll-have-to-buy-P100-coffee-to-smoke-in-peace moments) going home to alabang saddens me is because my, ahem, province (ateneo 96: "you live in alabang? diba sa may bundok na yun?") has come to mean the absence of people for me.

de la salle zobel, university ave - still road hump-ful, but hardly recognizable (hi-tech na ang facade).

house in ma. cristina, home of fellow ex-gymnast - dark. and then i think, oh, she and her hubby are playing with their new son, continents away.

carpool house number 1. carpool house number 2.

and the house i grew up in, that we cartwheeled and had birthdays in, where we practiced plays, got drunk, smoked on the rooftop--facade super different. my special rooftop gone. the trees were taller. the streetlights still had the same...glow...that reminded me of so many nights coming home...

the church seems emptier on sundays--it's like there's a gap somewhere, like all the parents said to a particular age group, "get out of here. find your life out there."

and then i had coffee with the now super-small foxy ladies: manila chapter, drinks with efferets...and it was all good. people come and go; you get around yourself, but you'll always carry home inside you.

not for the first time i look back on all those years
not for the last time names will ring in my ears