Dreams

d r e a m s

I see my emotions hovering like silhouettes in the sky...blurry, exact, restless, undeniable, changing. Hey look, there's my pain, my joy, my love, my sorrow, my emptiness, and oh so much more. What are they doing there? What does it mean? Am I dead? Sometimes, I feel like that though, dead. Not in the physical sense of course. I wonder...wait, those are my dreams! Excuse me, I have to catch it.

I was running like a crazy mongrel; stretching and pushing my muscles to their limits. My breathing sounded like rain. The sweat flowing like waterfalls on the supple skin of a child. My energy almost depleted, but I continued on. What determination inside a scrawny abode of my soul, I thought unconsciously. If you saw me, you would have thought I was in a race against the Olympians of the world. What was I after, I wonder. Then, there it was, out of nowhere. The memories came vividly, without any input on my part. It just flowed continously and I didn't know where it was coming from.

It's a dangerous thing being a child with a determination of a leader and an olympic athlete, or so I would like to believe. I was as adamant as a child could be. This spells disaster when combined with the beach. My love for nature consumed me almost immediately after my first swim in the ocean (no wonder. the color of my skin tells all). I do not know what kind of power the ocean has for me. It's like a magnetic pull attracting me wherever my life takes me. What an enigma.

I was six years old and stubborn, with cousins and friends hanging out everywhere. My grandma was a very strict Christian and teacher, who always tried her best to hone my so called talents. After school, she wanted me to do the "proper habit". Is there such a thing? She wanted me to have a set things to do everyday after school. It's like this: (1) take a bath (2) change into my house clothes (3) review my school activities and what I've learned in class (4) spend some time with friends outside (5) eat dinner (6) read stories. I mean, give me a break, huh. I know it's the seventies, but geez! It seems I was living in a monastery...at my age? But of course, I was a lion and ready to roar at any given minute. So, I did most of what expected of me except when she's not looking, I was doing something else. I'd sneak off to the beach and build sandcastles and a fantasy life for myself. I'm sure all of us did. However, I always got caught with my extra activities and I paid for it by being grounded. It didn't stop me though. The next day, I'd sneak off to the beach again with my cousins and friends. Until one day, I woke up from my routine.

It was the same day as usual, except this time, something extraordinary occurred. The weather was bad and the waves as tall as I've ever seen it before. Still, we were determined to take another adventure in the water and we sneaked off again as usual into our beloved beach. There were six of us (me, my cousins Jill, Ronel, Michael, and friends Paulo and Ulysses). We ran to the beach and took off our "tsinilas" or "sandals" and our clothes; screaming excitedly towards the water. We knew it was dangerous to be swimming and fooling around in this weather, but we didn't care. Somehow, we thought mother nature will always take care of us, her children.

The six of us swam towards a pole some fisherman left embedded in the middle of the ocean. To this day, I still don't know why it was there. Anyway, each of us took a spot on the pole to hold on to and waited anxiously for the waves to come our way. One, two, three, four, five big waves came and we were still holding on to the pole. After the fifth, however, I think we began to feel a bit of intensity. I started to think the waves didn't want us to be there in the middle of its abode. The obnoxious six stepped into a new dimension we weren't prepared for. I can almost feel hatred everytime the waves hit us. It was like it wanted us out of its way. Then our last wave came and took all of us under water.

I was afraid and cold with no direction, no poles to hold on to, no help from my cousins and friends. I was encircled in a fluid prison of pain and terra incognita. A new territory came to me without warning. I tried to hold my breath as long as I could while I was wrapped around this unfriendly and unforgiving water. I imagined myself inside a cocoon, hoping that in the end, I will come out of it renewed. Somehow, I had a feeling that I was going to die. It was as if the water extended its arms to me and choked me with all its might. I couldn't do anything and my life flashed before me (well, all six years of it anyway). There was no need for me to defend myself, there's no more hope. All I could think of was to ask God for forgiveneness. I was ready to die. The acceptance of death was a saviour for my little soul. So, I closed my eyes and hoped for death to come as fast as it could. Then, a miracle happened. My cousin, Jill, pulled me out My MMy M

My cousin, Jill, pulled me out of the water and dragged me to a safe place. The beach, my haven. For a moment, I felt and heard my heart pumping insanely. I wasn't sure if I was dead or not, until I felt the wind caressing my face. I never felt better after this. I didn't know what to say to my cousin. I don't think she did either. All she did was asked me to go home with her. We didn't tell anyone about what happened that day. I don't think we wanted to remember it. This was the first realization that nature could turn into a monster. We didn't want to accept that because all of us still love the ocean. In our innocent mind, we could not comprehend why the ocean turned against us.

After two years, I went to Manila to be with my dad and the year after that, we went to California to be with my mom. It took me a while before I saw the ocean again. I didn't think about it much. Until one day, when we were visiting the Philippines, I went to the beach again. It was early in the morning and I wanted to catch the sun rise. It was then that I realized how terrible it was for me to forget the ocean. I had put it somewhere in the back of my mind until this day. I realized I've missed so much. This was the dream I've been dreaming about. The ocean, flowing fast and free without destination (this sentence was a part of the haiku I wrote back in jr. high...I thought it would be useful here). The ocean was a representation of us and I had neglected it because of fear. It wanted to show us death, so that we could better appreciate life.

I have been dead.. All of us have. We wake up in the morning and do our daily routine. We travel the road we have been travelling again and again. We grew weary of it and we no longer find life in our lives. No more time to do and appreciate the simple things that makes life so beautiful and wonderful. This dream woke me up. I thank God and the ocean for that. Now, you see why I want to catch that dream?