Sleepy Balilihan

’93Su-ow kaajo, nay.’94

I remember my cousin saying this to her mom, while I was a little kid vacationing in the sleepy town of Balilihan, Bohol.  I remembered it clearly not because of the hurt he was feeling, but because of his delivery of that line.  Like the Ilonggos, Bol-anons have a sing-song delivery of tender conversations that could lull you to sleep.  Boring is far away from the equation, it’92s like hearing somebody sigh– to say the least.  Think cursive handwriting and floating butterflies and somehow you’92ll get an idea of how I felt when I first heard my cousin speak.

That summer, I learned how to appreciate an empty street, and to sit on a bench to participate in the silence that seemed to be everywhere.  Had I been a lot less na’efve, I would have known that in other parts of that town, life goes on as usual; a middle-aged housewife would still have to cross the street and buy Ajinomoto from the corner sari-sari store and along the way ask for some stalks of lemon grass from her neighbor’92s roadside garden.  I would have also known that another cousin who ridiculously shaved his head (it was abnormal then) was already experimenting with ’91shrooms, by mixing it in his morning Milo.

But those were too complicated things for a young boy’92s mind.  

I only noticed simple things like my lola who is always sitting in her favorite rocking chair (I never saw her anywhere except in that chair), who seemed to be always looking and smiling at me.  My tita told me that lola was already senile (gi-angoango na).  Lola would ask everyone who cared to listen if lolo (who’92s been dead for a long time) was already home.  Everyone would tell her not yet, and she would promptly forget about her question, and continue with her smiling ways.  I would always smile back at her and promptly kiss her hand when the grandfather clock struck six in the evening.  She delighted in that act.

Everything moved slowly in that town, even the birds seemed to fly at half their usual flying speed.  It’92s an ideal place for a young kid who’92s not in a hurry to grow up, who enjoyed chasing after dragonflies instead of going to kindergarten.

  This weekend I’92ll be chasing wisps of these childhood memories when I go back there to pay homage to a lifetime encapsulated in a few weeks of summer.  I only hope that my memories were real and not imagined as most weird little kids are likely to have.