Perhaps, next only to Christmas, summer is the merriest time of the year. The long school break prompts the whole family to think of taking a vacation somewhere. Often, it’s to the province where they go, to relish the fresh surroundings and enjoy time with relatives.
I grew up in the province and didn’t have anywhere to go in summer. Nevertheless, my summers were great. Young relatives from the city would come, an opportunity for us provincial kids to show off what special skills we got: walking barefoot on rocky footpaths, gathering dried carabao manure (for fertilizing the plants) with our bare hands, climbing coconut trees etc.
What really made those past summers special for me was spending light moments with older relatives. The crop fields were yet bare after the harvests, rain clouds were nowhere to be seen, and so everybody was momentarily taking it easy. Old aunts and uncles told stories that were heart-warming to hear, providing a nice feeling of reassurance that I was part of a continuing family saga.
There were a lot of other things, too. The sweet delicacies that the old women in the clan would cook up never failed to summon the younger ones to the kitchen, anyone’s kitchen. At times, it was biko (cooked glutinous rice immersed in thick caramel of coconut milk and brown sugar), sometimes fried overripe bananas or coconut candies, and at other times kalamay (cassava tapioca cooked in coconut milk and sugar) –— everything so delicious with either fresh buko juice or lemonade.
Various fun and useful activities abounded. You could relax atop the carabao while grazing it in a vacant field. You could go picking fresh seashells in the nearby shore, to make into a hot soup at mealtime. Or you could catch crabs in the marshes, using foot-long tubes cut from a bamboo pole.
Looking back now, I think those accounts of real-life experiences of old relatives are what made those summers very memorable for me. They gripped me in a special way. The wisdom embedded in each story has forever enriched me.
It’s a sad thing that many of the traditional activities we did in the summers of the past no longer interest the young people today. The new generation still goes to the countryside in summer. But they get bored after only a day or two, and want to head back to the city at once.
There’s nothing in the countryside anymore to excite today’s youth. These days there’s nothing easier and more fun to do than going online and checking friends on Facebook. That does not take going through long, bumpy and dusty rides.
So no one is doing those old things now. No one is making biko or kalamay anymore, more so because the price of sugar has gone up and coconuts are getting scarce. And it’s no wonder that the today’s teenagers may not have heard of pamas-ong (crab catching) or panginhas (picking fresh seashells) at all.
And there are fewer carabaos to ride on and graze; no one wants to work in the crop fields anymore. Everybody is sending their kids to school, so that the family may finally get out of the bondage of the land and experience a different life. The work animals have been sold away to pay for the children’s education.
I have since left the barrio, and the countryside no longer beckons me at summertime. I had already heard the stories of my grandparents and old uncles and aunts. And there are much fewer of them left there to tell me new ones.
Mama Ipion is gone, and Mano Proceso, and Mama Paster. Mama Bebing is no longer there, either; Tatay Anie and Tatay Meyoy passed away months ahead of her. Mama Besit had recently followed; we laid her to rest two Saturdays ago.
At some point, it begins to feel like we are losing everything and everyone in our lives – one by one. A very sad thing. And scary as well, because it brings to mind the certain course and limitedness of our own earthly time.
But from this depressing experience may yet come something good. Being made aware that nothing in the here and now lasts for so long, we may become more thoughtful in our ways, more careful in our actions. We may love more and doubt less, feel more alive and less bored.
In due time, we will each come face to face with what we’ve been trying to ignore, come to terms with the things that were never meant to be. One by one, everything falls in into its proper place, all on its own. Yet we must actively participate in life — because it’s our life, and it is our challenge to make it matter.
Everything has its time. Life runs by seasons; there is a time for toil, a time for rest. Summer lasts only until the first rain comes.
Our prayer then shall be that when the blows come they may come one by one. That there may be time in between for us to recover. That each test may make us better, not bitter.
(E-MAIL: modequillo@gmail.com)