Meet the Clouds

As far as I know, I’ve spent my entire life comfortably sitting here on earth’s warm bosoms, staring up at the distant sky and wondering what it would be like to actually be up there, playing and tumbling all over glittering Orion and Ursa Major, instead of down here, suffering from a severe, possibly life threatening case of torticollis. That’s only as far as I know, since in many of my psychedelic, phantasmagoric, and technicolored dreams I’ve often flown on my own and danced fiery fandango with the stars to my heart’s content, and by the time I wake up in the morning there is but a faint relic of the memory, such that I can never really know for sure if in fact I did, or if it was indeed just in my dreams.

Well at least I can say with all certainty that fandango is a dance I am yet to learn. It is a dance I am yet to become interested in, actually. But flying, soaring carefree beside the eternally stationary constellations and the migrating flocks of vacationing birds, has always occupied a big space in my mind, even when there isn’t that much room left. It has never been too hard imagining it, either. And I have a very convincing (albeit wild) imagination, might I add. And so it has always been easy for me to fly, carried by the strong hands of the wind (despite my challenging heaviness) and looking down at the rest of the small world stranded helplessly below, if only in the limitless realms of my own mind.

Little did I know that I would actually live through those uncanny fantasies. Two weeks ago I had a chance to meet the clouds. They were exactly as I had imagined them to be, friendly, well-mannered and pleasant, only more delicate and beautiful up close. For the first time in my life, I got on a plane and traveled not on the cratered dirt roads I’m used to everyday that bathed the innocent vagabond in blizzards of unflattering dust, but upward into the stratosphere, away from the grips of possessive gravity, and into the glorious, hazy gates of heaven. As I looked out of the window beside my seat, neck craned into abnormal contortions I never thought anatomically possible out of eager curiosity, I stared at the clouds for the entirety of the trip, utterly mesmerized by their unearthly beauty. If they could blush, I bet they would have with all the rude staring I did. I remember them swirling into ephemeral wisps of thin white smoke as the aircraft’s metal wings violently tore through the boulders of cumulus, nimbus, stratus and cirrus. They emanated a warm, silvery glare as even the sun’s harsh rays refused to offend their perfection and merely bounced off their cotton-like bodies and into the unfortunate human eyes of people like me naively staring. Even my contraband sunglasses were not so helpful. But it didn’t matter. I still sat there, squinting while gazing out at the clouds through the window next to the man beside me who, I must admit, I had obviously forced to endure the discomfort of my intruding his little pocket of privacy with all my restless fidgeting.

I was just so thrilled that if it were legal and physically possible I would have stuck out a big plastic bag through the window (a biodegradable one, at that, to not cause the environment so much trouble digesting it later) and scooped them and brought them home in heaps like the pretty green balloons I used to horde without permission and keep as souvenirs from the children’s birthday parties I gatecrashed and ruined back when I was still young enough to actually get away with it. I was so captivated and enthralled by it all that I didn’t even dare touch the complementary snacks the stewardess served (although they seemed interesting too, in fairness), afraid I would miss a particularly interesting patch of mist if I so much as turned my head away for a few seconds to, say, pay close attention to where the emergency exits were located. It felt like an hour-long carnival ride for me, really, and my insides were turning as I sat there, wide-eyed and in awe of the vast blankness of white space that stretched as far as the eye could see.

While on the plane and staring at the nothingness everything seemed so distant, even the petty worries and worldly preoccupations I burden myself with everyday. I realized how minute we all are in comparison to the vast expanse of the blue and immaculate white sky, how we all fit into the greater scheme of things, small pieces of an elaborate jigsaw puzzle, how we often live in our own impenetrable little bubbles, ignorant of the rest of the world’s dilemmas. But I completely forgot my enlightening reflections soon enough, just as the plane touched down on the runway of the airport and the excitement of setting foot on such a big city consumed me like visiting an amusement park does a deprived child.

I had been working in an outbound call center since late last year. I must confess (although I reckon there really isn’t much need to since it must have been painfully obvious) that I struggled just to survive the first few months on the job. It was a rigorous challenge that constantly demanded me to adapt to the difficulties and deliver what was expected of me despite my own distaste of some of the things I had to do, like smiling idiotically after getting hung up on by a potential client. But by some big miracle I did get the hang of it soon enough, and by the first month of the new year I had reached (and even surpassed) my quota and earned myself an all expense paid trip to Manila, a trip I had not yet made in my life, not even once. It was a good enough incentive, I thought to myself, a fitting perquisite I earned from hard-work and compulsive, sometimes almost indignant praying. And so I was whisked off and ushered by gracious, decently dressed strangers into a plane, and soon soared light-headedly at 4,075 feet above the ground, where all the clouds were out to meet and welcome me.

As I was beginning to write this, my frail old body was still recuperating from an imaginary jetlag of sorts, having had to adapt with so many sudden, although temporary, changes. I was still in a bit of a fugue, I must say, spinning giddily in a curious vertigo that was both disorienting and amusing. An entirely new experience, an overwhelming immersion in a world vastly different from the one I routinely walk around in everyday, is very disconcerting, to say the least, like looking into a bright and confusingly colorful kaleidoscope with unprepared, unshielded eyes. Having to take in and digest so many new and unfamiliar sights and sounds and tastes makes the senses sizzle in blissful fatigue until you can barely recognize the melting mass inside your skull that is your brain. I even had a difficult time reestablishing my physical relationship with the earth’s gravitational fields, my spatial sense of things, having been separated from them quite abruptly and having had to fly on a plane for the first time in all my life. When I got off the plane the first time I had an out of body experience every 38 seconds or so, the reality of where I thought I was and that of where I actually was becoming incongruent at times. It was like walking forward a few steps and, looking back, discovering that you’ve left your body behind in the same place you thought you had just left. Very confusing, I tell you.

I must admit the idea of going to a big, bustling city kind of scared me. In my warped little mind, worries swirled viciously like little unappeasable tornadoes, thrashing about and blowing my every ignorance largely out of proportion. For someone who has lived all his life in the comfortable sluggishness and relative serenity of a suburbanish, sometimes backward-thinking, provincial capital where traffic is a supernatural phenomenon that forebodes the coming of dark times rather than a redundant routine in daily living, visiting a modern day metropolis seemed an uncomfortable opportunity at sampling local tourism.

Will my ears ring with painful tinnitus at the pressure of soaring at such high altitudes inside an air-tight winged canister? Petty questions such as this constantly popped up in my head like malfunctioned light bulbs in dire need of immediate fixing. I didn’t have the answers to those questions just yet. I imagined having to confront monstrous clouds of toxic smog hovering above the ambitiously tall skyscrapers ready to pour acid rain down upon the city and melt all its preoccupied inhabitants who couldn’t care less as long as a paycheck was at hand. I imagined having to subject my otherwise healthy respiratory tract to the tortures of having to inhale corrosive fumes endlessly spewed by the throngs of ridiculously expensive automobiles that swarmed the dirty streets. I imagined having to be wary of the hardened criminals waiting like hungry predators in the shadows for ignorant foreigners to pounce at and victimize. I imagined having to irritate my mucous membranes by vigorously rubbing liberal amounts of malodorous liniment unto my tired and aching feet after loitering aimlessly and haggling and bargaining as if it were for the life of me in the many malls and markets that temptingly stood still with widely open doors. I imagined having to hold unto a sturdy traffic light or electric post to avoid being carried off by a flood of people marching down the polluted streets (I hope using the worn-out pedestrian lanes, at least) like absent-minded robots always trying to catch up with elusive time and satisfy the unreasonable demands of their invisible foreign employers. Heck, even the idea of losing my precious, fashionable luggage at the airport or accidentally letting slip an innocent bomb joke and getting humiliated and then incarcerated bothered me like a pesky insect.

But I have always enjoyed, despite my rheumatic, attention seeking knees, the adventures and thrill of traveling, of exploring new and strange places, observing unfamiliar faces and the cultures they carried painted on them. I’ve always loved to get away from the monotonous normality of living in my home sweet hometown and escape into new places where the very earth I walk on is different. I’ve been to Bohol and witnessed with my own two eyes the plight of my poor tarsier brethren, forced to pose with equally terrified tourists to create the perfect, economically useful postcard. I’ve been to Boracay and wanted to sweep the beach clean myself (of the trash, the moss, and the ignorantly partying people), if only swimming in the cold, pristine waters didn’t distract me just before I did. I’ve been to Dumaguete and visited a zoo so poorly maintained most of the animals were long dead and merely stuffed with cotton to keep them all plump and preserved. I’ve been to Cebu, too, but I can barely remember that trip at all. But never to Manila. So I looked forward to the trip as well, and convinced myself that all my fears only came from not knowing what to expect, the usual anxiety disorder people usually suffer from in the face of new and eccentric situations.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t live in the foggy hinterlands or the remote boondocks or some rural, idyllic, pastoral farmland where cattle graze to their innocent, animal hearts’ content. I don’t live in the prehistoric jungle, howling while pounding my chest, swinging down vines and eating breakfast on a giant banana leaf. I live in a small, simple city, a decently civilized one, in fairness to everyone else who shares the same geographical demographics as I who might not fancy my honest descriptions and prefer sugar coated euphemisms and allusions. Fine. I live in a city where concrete roads are literally built in the middle of vast sugarcane plantations and haciendas. But it’s not that primitive, if I may say so myself. Although sometimes, from where I’m from, transportation becomes an impossibility by nightfall and you can’t commute for the life of you. But leaving my quaint hometown and visiting such a modern city for the first time is quite a breathtaking revelation. And I forgot to bring my gas mask along.

The city was just, I don’t know, a little too much for me to handle, I guess. When we landed, we partied for a while with people I had just met, and then ate dinner at a posh restaurant where I felt I could never belong, so out of place, yet gluttonously eating roast beef belly and sipping raspberry iced tea (with little success at truly reaching the bottom of the gigantic glass). Then it was off to the hotel, where I rested for about five minutes (you know I’m exaggerating stories again) before sampling the nightlife and sipping Starbucks toffee nut frappuccino. In the morning I visited the center. It was on the eighteenth floor, my goodness. I couldn’t help but stare at the buildings and the long, undoubtedly fatal drop if ever one was to accidentally fall off. Then I went to shop. Which entailed walking and stopping at a shop, looking around, and walking some more. I even rode the MRT for the first time, giggling quietly at the excitement of standing in a crowd in a moving vehicle, just like I was in some European country. All in a day and a half. I was so inexplicably tired and disoriented that I couldn’t even bring myself to taking any pictures. Not even a single one. Now I don’t have anything but weird stories to prove that I was indeed in Manila. Nor could I even afford to give a second glance to merchandize I would have otherwise killed to have. I just passed by the stores, so weary of walking around all I could think of was to bring it all to an end, even as the usually interesting clothes brandished themselves in front of me to obviously no avail. So much for making the most out of that trip. The pumping energy all throughout the city was so palpably possessing even the air seemed electric. I just couldn’t think straight with all that was happening all too fast. Maybe I’ll do better next time.

Good thing there will be a next time. Last I checked, I hit my quota again, and I’m set to visit Guimaras this summer as a reward. It’s time to meet the coral reefs this time.