Confessions: An Affinity for Goodbyes + Iligan: Glimpse of a Mother City
I must confess I have a deep affinity for goodbyes. I have my own share of being given that, and though I too have my own share of acting on its arrival, there lingers this scent of it far beneath my skin; that even after I have practiced it, edited it and finally done with it, there remains, for me, that invisible, faint and fragile cord binding me to those I have said it. So much like my own love, whose corpses I carry own long after its death.
I must also confess that I do know that goodbyes were designed for a reason: if not to make the act of saying “hello” again sweeter, it is the act that we could do in this world that spins and along its orbit things that we knew are suddenly nowhere to be found, save perhaps for traces, fragments in memory whose blossom smells so sweet and yet who in time would also fade away.
A few more days, that is all that remains, and perhaps this is my rehearsal for that day. Perhaps so that saying “hello” again would be sweeter to my soul, or just as a precaution in case I would not find the chance to greet it again.
But before anything else, allow me to tell you of whom I am saying goodbye to.
I must confess that Iligan was to me then one more city among the rest. But as how things go, in real life or in stories, things happen, things changed and soon I found myself in exile here, a refugee from a city that has filled my soul with such was wars and dying that to save myself I ran away from it.
Iligan is a Mother, and I have been living with her sons and daughters for these past years. I have come to love Iligan as a son would love a mother, though I have said it before that as a Mother, Iligan never loved me: for she never let her daughters discover me, accept me, comfort me, and ultimately her daughters never loved me. Of course, it is possible that the problem in being unloved lies not with her daughters but with me: I carry in the name I chose for myself the stains of so much living and dying, and perhaps these very things might have hidden me from their senses, from their eyes, from their hearts. Perhaps.
Still, I have many things to be grateful for. Iligan became my home. A stranger as I may be, I have been made witness to changes in her lives, I have breathe her blossoms, walk her skin, and I have tried to understand the murmurs and beatings of her heart as a poet is bound by his passion to attempt to.
In my soul is a room that lies empty: long ago, in a distant city, it was filled with the voices and presence of my brothers and sisters, who, even without a drop of common blood in our veins were bound by pigments, blank paper & ink, laughter and tears. My heart aches still for their present absence. Yet, I thank Iligan for a small space beside this empty room that was filled with the songs and voices of her artist and poet sons and daughters. In them I found certain kinship with my dearly missed brothers and sisters.
As long as I live and remember, these artistic sons & daughters of Mother Iligan are my brothers, are my sisters.
It was in Noria where I built my first refuge. I am thankful for the glimpses of life that was around me. I shall always remember with fondness the laughter of children playing just outside my place, awakening me in the process. Or the stories and voices of the drunks who seemed to be always there, with their stories, with their long slurred talks, of how they always offered me a glass or two of gin, whisky or beer every time I would pass by that narrow pathway when I go to or come back from work.
My second solitary refuge was in San Miguel. No, not the barangay, but I call it that for it was known for the school that was in the neighborhood. A short walk would lead me to a park. I forgot its name, only that it was a park shaped in a circle where lovers spent their idle time before saying goodbye for the night. A nearby store served food, and for some nights they filled my hungry stomach. This store was in front of Iligan Medical Center College, and I have seen a lot of crazy things during my stay here. The park deserves some mentioning again, even if only for the memory of those times I walked in circles around it while trying to unravel mysteries and miseries of m sleepless nights.
The City Hall of Iligan is situated on Buhanginan Hill. This was where I worked. It offers a splendid view of the city and the sea that stretches after it. At night, the grounds and garden in front of it is filled with lights, a popular destination for tourist, families, lovers. How many nights have I stood there, alone, gazing from that vantage point from where I have been and to where I would be going!
Once, with someone’s hand clasping mine, we walked the dark streets of Mercado, worried, but unafraid. We were looking for shelter, and we found it in each other’s arms.
On my first days, wary of then getting lost, I found myself a shop that offered coffee in the center of the city. Aptly it was named “El Centro.” The coffee was not the best I have had, it was quite ordinary, I should say, but the people who ran the place welcomed me with such warmth that it did made the coffee taste better. It has been though changes the past two years, but I shall never forget it.
An hour and a half away from Iligan is Cagayan de Oro City. I have my shares of bus rides to that city, and my curiosity made me hungry to discover so much more than her name, though I must confess that most of my time spent their was between the arms and legs of a love that found me in Iligan but originated there.
I am leaving to devote myself to my passion, though I know I would be writing so much more about Mother Iligan in the months to come. Still, allow me to share two more frames.
One: for now, let me say that Iligan City is so much like the Garden of Eden. Made much more so that I felt how the love of a handful of distant women snaked around my fingers, as if mapping every inch of my frail body, twirling through my tongue, gripping my thoughts. And like snakes, they left, but not before sinking their fangs dripping with the poison of abandonment in my soul and flesh. They say fragments and traces of those poison would always remain, they would always somehow maim, no matter how little or small, but before I leave this City I am proud to say I have washed away most of their poison through the twin rivers of my eyes.
And Lastly, why I love Iligan. Mother as I call her, the reason could only be from the creatures that I have and will always love, the creatures whose love I never had and will always long for. One of God’s finest creations: women.
I present to you the Daughters of Mother Iligan as how I love them.
Never have I seen women so vibrant, whose inner fire burn with such warmth as the women of Iligan. Their voices are soft, yet forceful enough that they penetrate the walls made by men and by our patriarchal culture. They speak with intelligence, with fluid reasoning that only idiots and fools would not listen to them. They are indeed the womb that gives life to the city. Along the years I have met many of them, different, and yet all the same. I never thought I would meet women such as them here, but I have, and my life has been more meaningful.
Wherever I may be after I leave, I shall always carry the stories, the images of your women, of your daughters Mother Iligan so that her kind would know of them, discover them, and find within themselves the fire that buns in the hearts and soul of your beloved and fantastic daughters.
I have said that I wished I could have lasted a little bit longer. Since I have not, may all that I gave as I worked for the glorious women of Iligan be enough to be called a brother, to be called by Mother Iligan as her son.
Thank you, Mother Iligan.
I have said so much. I have said so few.
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