Downtown

Today I just stayed home and wandered aimlessly in cyberspace, having haphazard online conversations with friends here and there, watching videos of performances from the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, and looking through paparazzi pictures of Victoria Beckham’s latest bold, astonishingly short hairstyle (which she “launched” during New York’s Fashion Week, how posh), so there isn’t much to talk about, really. Yesterday, though, I woke up to the peculiar feeling that the day was at an end, like it was already sunset just as the sun was beginning to rise. The noise I heard around me sounded more like people were already ending their day instead of just starting it, finishing work, packing things up, heading home and preparing for supper. When I hadn’t even had my breakfast yet. It went on for about half an hour more, this disturbing disorientation, the entire time I was preparing to go to class. Weird, I know. But then things went back to a state of boring normalcy soon thereafter, anyway, with me attending a rather overwhelming class in neurology and then going to the mall after the lecture, eating pasta and fresh vegetable salad in a pizza parlor and singing my inexplicable frustrations in the videoke rooms at the arcades. So there isn’t much to talk about yesterday either.

So I’m going to talk about the day before yesterday, Sunday, instead. Despite the gloomy weather, there were many good reasons why it was better to go out and see the world rather than just stay in. There was a power outage in most parts of the city and we didn’t have electricity the entire morning (and I was told through most of the afternoon as well). I was either just eating whatever rotten stuff I could find in our old, disintegrating refrigerator or imagining how it would be like to go wandering outside. Needless to say I was a bit bored, especially after staying indoors the past few days because of my recurring illness. I was also feeling better and had not done anything remotely significant in the past three days or so, so I decided to go out and put my body on a test drive, just to see if it was ready for another rigorous week of living life as it is. I wanted to do something else. Save an innocent pedestrian from being abducted by alien life forms, perhaps? Who knew? I just had to do something entirely different from just vacantly counting down the days, so I wouldn’t have such a hard time telling the days apart from each other (they’d been all the same lately). So I volunteered and presented myself to take my brother’s newly laundered clothes to his school (where he’s housed for the rest of the semester), if only to have a good excuse to get out in the middle of an impending typhoon.

As usual I dressed myself up. That is simply how insecure, self-esteem deficient, attention-seeking people like me cope with the pressures of everyday life. I wore a pink graphic tee shirt and a pin striped vest along with a pair of black skinny jeans and my worn out high cut, eggplant violet Converse All Star Chuck Taylors with electric pink shoelaces. That is all I seem to wear these days. I also snuck in a pink and white shemagh inside my pink and black, skull imprinted tote bag, just in case it gets frigid. But of course it never does since I live in a tropical country in South East Asia. But I insist on wearing these colorful scarves for shallow, merely aesthetic purposes. Fashion is a way of expressing oneself without having to cause violent riots and rallies and widespread anarchy, you see.

On my way to my brother’s school I got on an old jeepney that was almost empty. It had two other passengers, two rather cantankerous, unattractive women in their mid adulthood (although they looked way older). These two women were harassing the poor driver to leave as they were in a hurry. As if women like them had any important appointments and meetings and commitments to catch. From what I could see, they looked pretty much poor and unemployed and seemed to have been on their way to a leisurely stroll in the park, no less, where most women like them went to for cheap manicures and gossiping on Sundays, their usual day off. One other passenger had already walked out and left as the driver momentarily parked the jeepney in a corner, waiting for other would be passengers. I understood the driver’s plight, as gasoline costs so much these days and it’s just so hard to get by and make both ends meet. Apparently, the two women did not. I felt the driver’s upset as he drove off, empty and very much hassled, and in a random act of pure kindness and charity that surprised even me handed my fare to him and did not bother asking for the change. I was telling myself to just let him keep it, if not in recompense for the two women’s insensitive harangue, then at least for being so understanding as to not have retaliated. It wasn’t much anyway. So there, I let him keep it, for whatever it was worth. However when I got off where I was supposed to, the driver called out to me (I was almost halfway across the street by then) and gave me back my change. I was pleasantly surprised. Apparently the universe was not used to and did not want my sincere generosity. Oh well. I whispered a quick prayer as I went off, asking God to bless the driver for being so unexpectedly pleasant.

I’ve always loved roaming downtown. And I’ve always treated Petula Clark’s song “Downtown” as a spiritual mantra of sorts, singing “when you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown” as I watch the city lights flicker like little stars on the pallid cement horizon, looking at the colorful store displays and the rivers of people who make their way through the crowded streets. We all deal and cope with our lives differently, and for me, this is one way I do. I roam and watch and look and think. It’s a good place to go to when you’ve got too many things on your mind that you just want to momentarily forget. The more you walk around, the more these thoughts seem to just trickle out of the very pores on your soles, and soon you feel your brain slowly being emptied of all these ill humors as they are quickly replaced by the amusing sights and sounds all around you. That day I went to all three malls in the city. One can tell I had so much in my mind I wanted to escape from. I went everywhere, as if everything would disappear tomorrow and it was my last chance to see them all.

I enjoyed watching people watching me. I walked around the downtown area, weaving along old (but never forgotten) buildings and stores, crowded streets lined with sidewalk vendors and bystanders and street preachers. From behind my (fabulous) sunglasses I could see them look at me as we crossed each others’ paths. I consciously posed each time. Sigh. The things I do to cheer myself up. Sometimes it’s all you need. A complete stranger appreciating your odd fashion sense, asking for autographs and pictures. But of course I never get that. So I just walk and walk, pleasing myself with curious stares and a few discreet giggles here and there. I love roaming downtown.