The open road

Three Saturdays ago, our professor in creative writing class asked us to take a walk outside the university. A walk that would introduce us to the open road he had faithfully discussed. A very significant open road that was, at first, alien to me because I came in late to class.

For a while, I considered the said open road as something that should be taken seriously. I also thought that the open road we were talking about was something figurative. Sometimes, in the middle of my search for the open road's hidden meaning, my mind would give up and would then take refuge in the literal meaning that does not need a further explanation. This only made the open road really complicated. For why should one mention a thing like the open road when it does not mean anything or something that is worthy for a discussion?

In other words, I find the open road mysterious, provoking my sense of comprehending a transcendental road that has stirred my fancy. You see, my tardiness is like a dilapidated bridge, making every transition certainly inaccessible.

Yet, I walked on anyway, trying to come up with a better understanding of the open road that almost looked stupid to me. It was a very familiar road we took that Saturday. Or, at least in my case, I believed that I had been walking on that same road since I was a kid. My grandmother who was once the vice president for academic affairs of the same university told me that my mother, her daughter, would always bring me to this university in the past. She said that mother's presence was always a disgrace.

So, I thought, perhaps, my mother must have also walked along that same road trying to look for a certain grace that would, at least, slow down the fire in her mother's heart. She must have treaded the same path I followed that Saturday. And, perhaps sometimes, she would also allow me to walk on my own, especially when she got tired of carrying me.

Likewise, in my college years, I walked on that same road frequently. During those years, however, I walked alone, or sometimes with my fellow English majors, or with my chosen friends. I had never walked with my mother since then.

Ah, I always walked on that familiar road and, yes, I also noticed numerous familiar signs. Familiar signs that have become strange to me when we took the walk that fateful Saturday morning. Never did I realize how oblivious I was with some familiar signs that are actually older than I am.

We had our first stop outside the university where some of my classmates were seriously observing, some were simply talking, one smoking and the other taking photographs. There were some who merely looked at the passing jeepneys. There were some who opted to keep their silence - yet we all had the same faces of candid literary enthusiasts: thinking and forming vivid images - both visible and invisible - passionately in our minds. I must admit though that I could hardly imagine their unique way of looking the open road.

Each has his/her own point of view that I desperately wanted to know at that particular moment. Flabbergasted, I focused my attention on the familiar signs painstakingly placed by the university's cemented fences - signs that looked like epitaphs of virtues. At that particular time, they truly looked dead to me, no matter how lively were the hues used. Ironically, they no longer catch one's attention. They have become designs, disgusting designs, in fact. Ah, they are like food that no longer tempt the discriminating palate.

We all continued walking around the university, never giving so much emphasis on these signs. I am glad not because we forgot to take notice of them but because of the idea that we were all looking for something real, something true. As we kept on walking, we noticed the terrible garbage scattered everywhere, the newly painted fences of the university, one black shoe, a cat, cars parked in a "no parking" area, a garbage collector, awful shit, trees, resident houses, and again a wide variety of cars as we reached in the more open road of P. Del Rosario St.

Then again, traffic signs caught our eyes. Ah, we are still ignorant when it comes to traffic signs. So, we moved on until we reached the skywalk or the overpass near the university. The bridge has its own story to tell about open roads that we will never know - be it daytime or nighttime. But who cares? After all, we have our own selves to deal with.

How many walks have I taken in my lifetime, I can hardly count now. Every walk I take is always a metonym to a labyrinth path I am into. Quite disgusting though yet it likewise, in return, always enables me to distinguish the strangeness of every path that I take. I never reach the finish line!

Worst, I consider paths as symbols I cannot even name. Yet, I always love walking until I cannot walk any longer. Feet get tired, too! Now, I know why those paths seemed alien to me even though they all looked familiar. It is because I put so much weight on someone's path, trying to understand his/her own perspective, almost neglecting my own. Or, perhaps, it is the other way around.