Old Friends

Jol's back from Bangkok. Astrid's up next I guess. Maybe we'll have another night together soon with Monica, Jessel, Arlyn, and Nathan. Another rainy night maybe?

I met with old friends yesterday night, my orgmates back from the Sandigan days. It was spontaneous, something afforded by the triple luxury of time, money, and circumstance that I was temporarily blessed with.

I was on the way to UP with Mae (my not-so-kid-sister) to get my endorsement. I sent messages and feelers to folks on the way there, knowing Carol was cooking something up at the UP CHE Pilot Plant. I thought I could get Bamz, Jerico, Alisher, Eugene, and other shady characters together. They were tied up in their own respective ways. But I went on to have dinner with Pauline, Irish, Blue, Ivy, and Michelle! Happy day!

There was fine selection of cuisine at the Podium. That banana leaf curry place had this interesting idea of appropriating the rural banana leaf plate into the high urban dining scene. Reminded me of the stuff we've lost and try our darnedest to regain.

Voltaire's cynic foil in Candide, Martin, said something about how having supper with fallen kings was inconsequential. It was the fare that mattered. I think meeting the luminaries of your past makes the meal—no matter how delectable—secondary.

We had coffee a few steps away at the less-fussed-about Cafe Breton. We had light-hearted conversation and good, heavy laughter. We were young people with our duties, concerns, little sorrows, our own bouts with hollowness, and anxieties. Yes, maybe, we can't change the world anymore, but it's not the time to stop trying right? We're just glad to have a break, have some eyes looking back at us and say how fatter or thinner we got. Or how the ladies are blooming with the blush of mayflowers and how the guys haven't stopped being such wiseasses.

We compared adventures and photos. And without showing-off, I think. We were all already a bit envious that everybody was spending time somewhere else, but it was refreshing to know that we're all moving forward, even with varying paces, paths, and plans. We were just a year or two out of the now seemingly sterile university. Outside those anemic walls... we have all faced the stuff we used to talk about, these pressures and conflicts that were then only stuff of speculation.

These hours we shared were just a moment in our clocks, a flash of color in the mundane, a dash of spice in the routine meals of our daily lives. There are some meals you consume in a matter of minutes, but the aftertaste will last a lifetime.

Ivy sent an SMS when everybody was home. She said these were the times when she missed Sandigan the most, that is, our org and greatest common factor. Michelle sent her own message: "saya no? i had a gud tym din. it's gud to hav anchors amidst tides."