Breathing Lessons

“Wake up, wake up,” I heard a whispering voice within my pillow. Stop it. I’m awake. I’m not yet sleeping. Torrents are pouring down in Paranaque. I had to close the window. It was one o’clock in the morning. Sleeping on a serene cold rainy Sunday will be heaven for anyone. Not for now. Five beeps from my cell phone revealed text messages which shared the same content from Emily and Ate Phongs, both cousin and friend in Daraga. “People are frantically evacuating again to higher places due to heavy downpour here…” Swept away from one hellish chapter, I grasped the bleak of the wee hours before dawn with a question.

Is it over?                                                                                  

It was the first day of December again. Flashes of memories are taking me to that day. I was back to that place again. I rushed outside to see that everybody’s awake. Maybe, they never slept too. People on the streets were busy. One car is being dragged out of a mud deposit. A BayanTel telephone pole and steel electrical post are being taken parallel from obstructing the road. At least the first ten people I viewed were barefooted, bodies are caked in sludge. One neighbor across street cleaning the front yard smiled at me. It will be a tough day for her and the entire family. The roof of their house was trashed on the rear yard. One tree rested on inside their house. Looking away in dismay, I went down into the community near the river channel to check on its condition. Walking slowly towards the setting was like slowly pacing into a death march. I pass by people sad, while some were sobbing. Some were just staring at me, while others busy drying wet household things. I wasn’t walking that much when I stopped. There was no river. To my surprise, the road ended there. It’s an ocean of sticky mud, accented with various types of roof structures floating like umbrellas. This used to be our playground. I was still imagining an imaginary concrete road that leads to a quiet river bank with concrete retaining walls. It was a waking moment where everything modestly built by the townspeople came to ruins. After typhoon Reming, there’s instability. There’s still no time to sleep.

By nighttime, our house was inhabited by some homeless people temporarily assumed by Pa. Children were noisy playing around. The elders were drinking gin and tonic. Alcohol will surely put them to sleep in that weary time. Some of them were talking about proposed relocations; moreover aid of the national government for rehabilitation. The continuing fear of mud slides coming from the debris deposited at the volcano will force people to look for new land. It is feared that our place will be a case of infamous “Mount Pinatubo Destruction Part II” like in Pampanga. But where will all the people go? I heard my Pa lamenting to his comrade, “It’s so sad that these young people will no longer enjoy what we had those times. I am already sixty-three years old and I have seen what Mayon Volcano has to offer. Maybe it’s not yet in my lifetime that our beautiful little town will finally be erased like the ancient Spanish colonial village of Cagsawa back in 1800s. Oh, poor young people…”                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Those words finally moved me poignantly. Daraga, along with other cities or towns in Albay are currently living in fear. Located within the radius of sprawling Mayon, there’s the tendency of being buried anytime as Mother Nature will dictate. Albayanos thrive with tourism and agriculture as major industries. Who can resist the splendor of Mayon? It’s the only one in the world compared with the snow-capped Mount Fuji in Japan. My Japanese boss even dubbed that Mayon is better than theirs. Having a mountain with almost perfect cone, being adjacent to the beaches open to the Pacific and owning fertile soils for large crops are already factors valid to live a cool life. People worked hand in hand with Mayon in the building of towns and cities. Its culture, literature, arts, and sounds are also influenced. Even when I was a child, my mother will scare me that bad children are being blown by the gods up to the hot crater of the volcano. Ha-ha, I believed that ‘till I was eight! Now that I’m an architect, on projects within the kingdom of Mayon, I will always put a sacred viewing place in my building designs showcasing the vista of the ethereal mountain. I remember my college professor threatened of giving me a failing mark because I positioned a solid concrete wall, windowless, up north where the view is unspoiled. It made him quite furious. I realized that Mayon is a part of everyone’s landscape. She was like a piece of massive sculpture that everyone claims possession. From shopping centers to flea market; schools to vacation houses, everything must revolve around her. Everybody must live both blissfully and dangerously with Mount Mayon.

On my bus ride going back to Manila, I can’t help but be hurt inside. I’ve seen elegant houses in Daraga buried in remains. Some subdivisions near the creek were erased. One Christian Church with its neighboring compound in the town of Camalig was swallowed in half. One community in Guinobatan was put to silent. We will never know how nature strikes at us. As I recall visiting Legazpi City, it was ironic that the old Albay Cathedral was left untouched by the typhoon, but its nearby younger structure, the city jail was mercilessly left with crumpled roof. See the oddity? This wrath brought by both the eruption and the super-typhoon deems already proof that God works in mysterious ways.

I was bit by bit coming to drone. Thoughts of home cradled me to sleep. When I think of home, I think of Mount Mayon. I’ve always been proud of living at the foot of an active volcano. I was never afraid. Why should I? Loved living with fire underneath us. You’d be watching a sight to behold every time you wake up. Hmm, sounds exciting. Wherever I go, I always have some stories of my hometown in my pocket. Someone will ask me, “Where exactly do you live in Bicol?” I’ll briefly answer with glee, “in Mayon Volcano!”