Travelling

There is something disorienting about seeing Los Angeles , California , for the first time. It is something akin to déjà vu, the feeling that you’ve been here before though you know you haven’t. It is something easy to explain. One can only be amazed how familiar the sceneries are to a Filipino like me who also grew up on Hollywood and television.

My sister drives us through Pacific Coast Highway on the way to her home. It is a nice drive with the Sta. Monica Mountains on your right and the Pacific Ocean to your left. We pass through Malibu Beach . Why is this place so familiar? This is where the TV series Baywatch was situated. A few weeks ago the National Geographic Channel featured motorcycles particularly the Harley Davidson. This highway was the very scene featured. Then of course one recalls photographs of the California deserts from classic books of photography and architecture. And so you cannot help recall houses you’ve seen from magazines. Even the beauty of desert flora seems familiar. And so with the cars, the hot rods, the classic Latino pimp car, the Porches and Ferraris.

I am happy to be here. This will be as close as my family can get at this time to a viable reunion. We have become scattered geographically to such an extent as to make events like this expensive and difficult. This could be the last time we can do this. And there is irony that this should happen only after and most likely because our youngest brother had passed away. It puts a sad poignant note to everything. But perhaps this event will make us that much more prepared and accepting of this whole concept we call death. What can be a better metaphor for it than travel?

Before going, we prepare as best we can.

And so we envision what might transpire in our absence. We go through the hectic process of handing out instructions at home and at work as if we can fully compensate for our absence. “Wrong!” My friend Raul says. “You are not as indispensable as you think. No one is.”

It is almost as if to say the world and life will still continue after you’re gone. And of course it does. And however you might try, you will not have any control at all how they will go on without you. You just have to accept. Perhaps even to the extent as to enjoy your being gone.

I almost missed my flight. I learned the hard way that 12:30 a.m. Thursday happens not on Thursday evening but after the evening of Wednesday. And so I left with only an hour of actual preparation time. I suppose I should say that as in death I left absolutely unprepared.

This year did not start out too well for me. In January, I traveled stormy seas to Ormoc to get to my friend Ed Alegre’s wake in Tacloban. I had not traveled long distances in a motorcycle until another friend Alex Gonzales died. It seemed the motorcycle was the best way to get to his wake in Argao. After all, Alex, like me, also had a red bike. Now here I am, traveling via jumbo jet to get to my younger brother’s memorial gathering in Oxnard , California . I wonder: Is God is trying to tell me something?

The message seems so far unclear. What I can glean from all these, so far, is just the simple conviction which might be good advice where life is concerned. Where ever you go, enjoy the way there because to travel is as inevitable as death itself. May 21, 2009 , Kinutil/CDN