Magsaysay Park Melting

I don’t suppose it is strange to have a song playing in ones head every time one walks along a beach, a city street, a park or even a mall.

Sunday was the first time I ever set foot inside Magsaysay Park. I don’t think I would have been there this early in time of my being in Davao City if it were not part of my school assignment. “The park is just for the maids spending their day off, nothing worth seeing inside there”, Gabriel has said more than once when I ask him if anything special to see inside. Of course, I’d laugh and tell him, maybe he’s got some memories to avoid. But he did come with me when to see the Kalimudan Exhibit that Sunday. I was surprised to find out that one can see the view of Samal Island from a certain point inside the park. I wouldn’t have guessed. Who ever designed the park did a very bad job concealing such magnificent sight. And the park, oh my, it’s grisly! Even Magsaysay standing in his monument looks unhappy. What statue wouldn’t be?

Gabriel and I had fun walking through the exhibit and thought the large trampoline-like structure was a lot of fun. But I kept hearing that song in my head … “McArthur Park is melting in the dark….” And I’ve thought of that still unnamed park in another part of the city that I passed by just the previous week. Why are they making another park when they haven’t done anything good with this one that I can see holds great promise of being a wonderful park.

That night, I asked Gabriel if it would be a good idea to write the governor and tell him we can create a much better Baywalk in Davao City if he’d let me takeover managing Magsaysay Park. Gabriel laughed, he knows I’m serious, but he also knows that my passion will melt away as soon as my passiveness kicks in.

But I am still thinking of the park even after three days later. I imagine how beautiful it would be to drive or walk along Magsaysay Boulevard with the view of the Samal Island. I imagine how much tastier the durians will be in my mouth when my eyes are feasting with the bubbly waves and the dancing skies that would only separate Samal and me.

We have planned to eat durian after going through the exhibit, but I suddenly feel I need to pee first. I can’t eat durian with a full bladder. Gabriel glanced at the park toilet and said, “You wouldn’t be able to pee in there”. Suddenly, we don’t feel like eating durian anymore and off we went to Agdao Market to face the huge rats of the city.

Why I Am Where I Am

I heard a lot about creative accounting practises before I did of a creative writing course. There’s a thought of certain freedom that comes with the word creative, whether it be in accounting or writing. Being creative has become to mean not having to submit oneself to an absolute rule or at the very least, the permission to bend whatever rule there is. Creative works, that especially in the realm of the art, can almost always get away with anything, nothing is ever considered really bad as bad is as long as it is a creative work and criticisms becomes just matter of opinion.

Now, getting away with almost anything is something to have, not that I think I am a bad creative writer nor do I mind negative criticisms. I cannot decide whether the lack of need of others approval is a good thing or not. But for now, I know it cannot be bad for me. Doing things for myself has been my living motto for the last two years and it took me across one country to another, one region to another and one course to another, sort of one life to another, really. If one has felt lost for most of life, a new labyrinth will not scare, but rather presents a fresh path in one’s hope to discover something of life that is different from that of what has come before.

The question that begets an answer now is why did I choose to be where I am, and why creative writing? It’s not an easy question to brilliantly answer for one who is where she is now only because everywhere she’s been was a disappointment. Am I an escapee of my own life? Maybe. When one’s life is preceded with years of over-enthusiasms about the world that only yielded too much disenchantment, one takes the blows with learning to level off expectations. No, I am not yet a cynical old fool. I know I still hold within me my hopes of an ideal life. And I now realized that I am still shopping for the best buy of life.

Having chosen UP Mindanao and deciding I want to be in her Creative Writing course, I came without expectations. Don’t really know why for sure, except perhaps I have underestimated from the very start what anything in life might still teach me. I came to my first week in school with nothing but my own peace, I have nothing to give, but I will take whatever I will find I need.

I was sitting by the tables outside the classrooms between the registrar’s office and CHSS buildings, during one of my breaks –which I found to be plenty in the first week of school- it was so quiet and there was no one to talk to, and then was the first time I have thought to myself of why am I here? I remember sending a text- message to my friend Jon: “pare, was sup? studying in UP Min is like being in a religious retreat hehehe so quiet here, pare, close to nature, no shopping mall, can’t get a donut hehehe”. Jon’s reply made me smile: “Pare, running my own restaurant is a religious experience too- penitential! Just move (back) to Manila.”

Most of my friends thought of me as very brave, having left my “successes” behind to rediscover life. Who has that luxury, really, nowadays? Some friends are sceptical for me though. They’ve seen me journey from one place to another, literally and figuratively, that they do not think I can last long living in Mindanao. The truth is I don’t know for sure, either. There is too much irony in life, I’ve learned too. Taking control of my own life has also mean letting go of it –letting what has to happen, happen.

And I am here now, doing the very thing I want to do now, in the place where I want to be now. That’s what matters to me now. Things will change, it’s an absolute certainty I’ve, too, learned to expect with life, but when and how, not even my smartest self can say.

My professor asks what level and what genre of creative writing I think I am in now. I don’t know, really. Everything is relative to where I am in my life right now. I am okay to be unsure yet, but I am discovering.

November 19, 2007

Davao City