Notes on Baler: Arriving in Cabanatuan

Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija
12:47 am, 9th April 2009

I arrived in Cabantuan at quarter before one in the morning. Not bad considering I left Cubao at 9:30 pm. I successfully found Cutie’s apartment with the direction she gave, thank God manong trike driver knew the place (he should, right?). When got across the front door, I was a bit disappointed. I honestly never expected Cutie’s place to be somewhat lonely.

Read: The house has two bedrooms, both barren and without beds, there are two bathrooms (upstairs and in the kitchen), the living room is spacious. And Cutie lives alone. Maybe once she finds a boyfriend, the ambiance would be more…homey?

It then struck me how independent she is and how enticing it is to move out of the house. I remember when I first left high school and I accompany my friends in a townhouse in Sta. Mesa. The feeling of freedom is similar and the sense of independence--of not being entitled to anyone, of owning the place--has the same allure.

It strike me too how changed and old we are. How capable we are of getting married, forming our own families. There’s a sense of commonness in the thought, though, as if the momentary seclusion I am experiencing opens me to the possibility of a commitment. But then again, I always maintain a “clean slate” travel philosophy: What happens in (enter name’s place here), stays where it is.

Absurd that whenever I leave Manila, I always entertain the thought of falling in love, of living another life, albeit the idea never crossed my mind in the capital. Maybe it’s because Manila offers a sense of reality. And all the other places are merely fragments of another life I cannot lead.


Read Part 2: The Roadtrip
Read Part 3: Stoked