Moving On

Moving On

Almost one month earlier, I treated my tired soles to the most expensive pair of shoes that I’ve ever bought – a Merrell footwear that the according to the price tag costs P4,590. For a poor bloke, it’s pricey, considering that it was something I bought impulsively. I just woke up one Saturday morning with this thirst for a better perspective of the world. I was Mrs. Dalloway, and instead of flowers, I told myself that Yes, I will buy a good pair of shoes today! I will explore my city, and I need a new pair of shoes to take me to the source of the stink, to the heart of the heat. What a lark! What a plunge!

And so the shoes have traveled to places and now refuse to be kept in its box – his box. In his place, instead, are letters, email printouts, cards, pictures, post-its and mementos of a love that all of a sudden seems so long ago – a pair of blue boxers, an orange shirt, LBC pouches in different sizes, torn gift wrappers, a hand puppet, a hand woven wallet, a PDI clipping on Sagada, a toothbrush that for a time had a conjugal role, and plastics and papers that, for sentimental reasons, were never discarded.

In another box, a sleeping white bear stuffed toy that snores when its paws are squeezed occupies the space. The cute thing might give some homey comfort in any spot in my little room. Ironically though, it also suffers the fate of its kind – that of dust gathering and seeping in its softness.

The next to go were the books, a DVD of Before Sunset, and the CD’s. No, they won’t be kept out of sight. Rather, they will just be among the stacks and piles that populate my space – Cummings, Dickinson, Neruda and the poets and love letter writers in the company of Garcia Marquez, Proulx, Salinger and Tolkien; and the Filipino sounds in harmony with Bach, Debussy, Rachamaninov, Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan. They will continue serving their purpose, they will remain timeless. But they have stepped down from their little towers because they are humbled.

And the framed, handwritten Walt Whitman poetry? Something more recent is encased in glass this time – the lyrics of the song “Gorecki” by Lamb. Although this is a fairly recent song that gathered a cult following sometime in the 90’s and even until the present, it speaks of a love so fierce, its sound has a Gothic tranquility, and it’s homage to a late Polish composer.

That was almost a month ago when I paid the pleasant cashier and thanked the sales clerk, and my brown rubber shoes have since proven himself to be a good companion. He took me everywhere, then to a familiar place. It’s a different place though – new, special, beautiful.

And so I have once again cleared my table, shelves and spare shoeboxes for the letters and keepsakes that will be born out of this new acquaintance. I took a dive, a plunge, a freefall without security nets. I am young but I have learned early. I am mighty sure that I would land on my feet and not flat on my face. And I’ve got my good shoes on!