SABBATICAL NOTES. 19 JAN 2014 N4

SABBATICAL NOTES. 19 JAN 2014 N4 
For Erwin Aguilar and Marie Solver: on their 24th going on 25!)

THIS ONE BRAVE ACT of letting go and let the sea breeze blow on and caress your face and feel the freshness of the ocean is something that we harried people cannot do as ordinarily as we could. 

It is an allegory of how we have fallen prey to the promise of the good life, and that promise has to be worked out so that some episodes of which would come true.

We are surrounded by water, and it is the tourist that has all the chance to take a dip and we remember how it was in the past, in our mother's womb: we were floating and moving about without any cares in the world.

So this act of spending time with family to bless a sister and brother-in-law's wedding anniversary (24 years going on 25) and pray that they will have the next 25, and the next 25 thereafter, was an occasion of grace.

We allowed the waves to assault us so sweetly, and in the process, discovered that we can fight the curling water breaking into us by standing firmly, legs planted on the seabed, and head vowed as if in prayer.

You get less of the salt water this way.

You get to realize that prayer in all its forms could make us realize what graces we have got, what blessings we have received, and what hopes we have to hold onto to put some more meaning into our lives.

We partake of the meal prepared by many hands--and the fruits of the earth we bought from the usual sources that we know were the products of immigrant hands somewhere in Central California, say Stockton or some farming city close by.

We watched each other watching each other, and even if other family members are elsewhere some thousands of miles away, we know we have a semblance of a family even as we shared sacred stories, loud laughters, and merry memories.

It is one chapter of memory-making this, and the usual 'atang' for the dear departed.

It is regathering, this.

And we know we will do it again.

MKL, HI/
19 Jan 2014