THE LIFE I LIVE | I SHARE HEREIN

lifeGraph – 02.21.10

The day started after a rather long and much-needed sleep. The time for service approached quite quickly, and as it did I couldn’t help but think of the things yet to be done before the service starts. The musical pieces for today’s line-up of songs have not been transferred and rewritten yet. Presentations were yet to be prepared. Since my laptop has just been reformatted, it still lacked some hardware drivers which were essential for a fully functional and stable computer system. The rest is history.

We were already on our way home when my dad stopped the car. The past week had been too tiring for the whole family, and my dad said he was too sleepy to drive. Moments later I was sitting on the driver’s seat. I locked the door and buckled up. Ok, door’s locked, seatbelt’s on. Game time. My heart was beating so fast and my muscles felt like shaking. Excitement and nervousness were two competing emotions then. After a few words of instruction from my dad, who was, at that moment seating on the passenger’s seat to my right, I looked at the mirrors and checked for incoming traffic. The lane was clear, so I depressed the clutch pedal with my left foot and put the stick into the first gear. Slowly balancing the pedals for clutch and accelerator, the vehicle I drove started moving. While driving, my dad occasionally gave me tips like, “Tignan mo yang bullbar…saan siya tumatapat sa linya? Tignan mo yang side mirror. Dapat ma-tantsa mo yung spaces sa sides ng sasakyan.”

“Sis, ngayon ba yung concert sa plaza?” was my text message to my friend Audin.

“Oo, 6pm tonight. Wana see u der” was her reply.

Oh, did I tell you we got home, safe and sound? Yeah, we did get home without the driver (that would be me) figuring us into a car accident. Hoora! Ok, back to the concert. By then it was around 5pm, and, after seeking the consent of my parents, I prepped for the concert. Looking at my clothes, I thought to myself, “It’s a Christian concert. I should look descent enough.” A yellow polo shirt with dark blue accents on the collar, courtesy of Wrangler, was chosen for the night. The usual jeans  and flat shoes were put on afterwards.

The plaza was only about five minutes of walk away from our home, so I just walked. Upon arriving at the auditorium, I found out that the event was entitled “Fiesta ng Pasasalamat” (Feast of Thanksgiving). It was a joint effort of several local churches in the municipality, which was quite impressive. A team up of different musicians from different groups, I knew, would require some time of getting to know so that they could get along and have harmony as they do their thing. Since it was a time of fiesta for our municipality, many people go to the plaza. There were married couples, teenage couples, kids, and even senior citizens scattered about. To the right were mostly children playing around the swing, slides, and some other stuff that kids love. Behind me were mostly dating couples and barkadas. To my left, bikers and boarders were to be seen. They’ve got ramps and whatever else you call those things they had on the pavement. They jumped, flipped and spun around with their bikes and boards—things I probably can’t do. In front of me was the auditorium, and about 50 meters from where I stood was the stage. The first thing I noticed was that the tech committee had only about five spotlights in place. “Not much fancy lights tonight,” I thought to myself. They had some sort of cloth set up for the projection, but, given the position relative to the spotlights, I knew they’d have the trouble of readability. I looked around me and saw a spot were I could sit and headed there when I found one.

I was sitting on an octagon shaped shed when I noticed elderly ladies that seemed to me like they were the ushers of the event. They caught my attention because they too, were wearing yellow. Talk about the feeling of belonging! It’s a good thing the organizers chose elderly ladies to be the ushering, because if they had chosen guys that looked my age, I would have gone back home just to change my shirt. To the organizers, many thanks from me. Minutes later, two of my highschool classmates also made their way to the shed. These two were couples, ya’ know. Let’s call ’em “Kha” and “Cla” just this once. Anyway, Kha’s left hand held a guitar, while his right hand held a burger. Cla too, had a burger on her right hand. They offered me some, but, like the usual response of many of us, I politely refused and said, “sige lang.” After some chat, I was left alone again. I then checked my phone and texted another friend, one whom I call my ading (young sister). We decided to meet up and have some time together. Minutes later, after some convincing on my part, we headed to the nearest Jollibee to grab some snacks. Joy, my dear ading, settled for a black forest sundae while I ordered a burger with fries and coke. If you’re a regular costumer, you probably know the product code for the aforementioned meal. “Ang ganda ng mata mo,” I said with a smile, while we were eating “palit tayo.” We both had a great time, considering it was our first time to spend time together. After eating, I let her ride the jeepney home, then I headed back to the auditorium.

The concert had already started when three friends arrived to keep me company. They were kuya Mark, Reynard and ate Diane, a best friend of mine. I can say I wouldn’t have enjoyed the night as I did if not for them. During the concert we sang along the music and had a bosesan session. When the concert was nearly over, our fun night began. First we craved for coffee, and headed to the Burger Machine just outside the plaza area. When we arrived, we found out that the personnel didn’t  have enough money to give change to kuya Mark’s bill. We walked again and headed to Coffee Republic. None of us had already gone there before, so we were quite reluctant, not sure of the price and how everything goes. Because of that, we found ourselves walking again and thought of buying food in Mercury Drug, only to find out that the store was already closed. Then one of us came up with the question that started it all: “Dagupan tayo?” We were all laughing and were quite undecided because my watch’s short hand pointed at 10 while it’s long hand pointed at 11. Nevertheless, we found ourselves sitting in a jeepney. Desination: Dagupan City. On the way, we couldn’t help but laugh at ourselves.

After a rather quick travel time, we got off at an intersection commonly reffered to as “junction.” 7-eleven was our pick for our food trip. There we ordered two bopis rice meals and shared among ourselves. A rather weird choice for our drinks was made by Reynard, who got Slurpee for us. The rice meal wasn’t enough, so kuya Mark got some donuts. Reynard, meanwhile got himself some sort of candy or lollipop which he dips in some powder that causes a popping sound when already inside his mouth. I then grabbed a Vcut, another junk food. Kuya mark got the coffee he wanted minutes later. I said, “bukas pare-parehas tayong constipated nito, hahaha.” After much laughter and fooling around, we decided to go. Outside, the air was quite cool. We then walked around the streets of the city while talking and exchanging jokes. At around 12:15am, we were got on a jeepney that was headed back to Mangaldan. We parted ways when we got to the plaza at around 12:45. The three of them rode a pedicab—our taxi, and I rode another. Less than five minutes later, I was home. What a night. I dozed off probably around 2am.

Sometimes the opportunity to be with people whom you care about seldom comes. If it does, it would be wise to choose to grab the opportunity and have a great time together. You never know when you’d have the chance to be together again. [ ^juRo™ ]