Downtimes.

We’re stuck in an immediate world. We wake up to deadlines, and we usually sleep half-heartedly because we’re always nowhere near close enough to what we have to accomplish for the day. We yearn for breaks, yet we use them to think about what has to be done, what hasn’t been finished, or what needs to be reviewed.

Sometimes, it’s nice to step back and let life take its path. To breathe an entirely different air, not one of immediacy, but one of rest. Of recovery. Of staying rooted in the present.

—

The Loyola Mountaineers and the Dumagats of Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija, have had a long history of coming together and celebrating life. A brief encounter with the elder Dumagats would reveal to you stories of old members visiting them every few weekends, bringing food and music, while the Dumagats would teach them how to cook from stoves on top of rocks, and would bring them to the hidden spots in mountains, sharing to them how life has been, how life is, how life could be better.

It’s been a while since those weekly visits were last done, and while LM still commits itself to visit at least once a year, my first visit was a reminder as to why the relationship has lasted so long as it have: there’s still so much to learn.

We think we know everything. We’re equipped with gadgets that would furnish us answers as soon as we let our fingers glide across our phones. We relish in the swiftness of the delivery of responses, forgetting that too often it becomes poison.

Too much, we become absorbed in the things we have at the palms of our hand that we forget to look back (or forward), and see that we’re not in our lonesome at the grander scheme of things.

We are too amazed with concrete buildings and people dressed in impeccable suits and ties, almost galloping as they scramble to reach their offices just in time for another 8 hour weekday.

We’re too focused on ourselves.

We forget the value of resting. Of retreating. Of going back to our roots.

We have forgotten what children look like when they are acting silly, or when they are eating their favourite food.

We have forgotten that we once were children, too.

We have forgotten the simple pleasure of eating with our hands empty except for the utensils we’re using or the food we’re about to place into our mouths.

We have forgotten that it’s okay to be in the sidelines sometimes. That it’s okay to not always be doing something. It’s okay to have downtimes, and days for sleep, and days when we don’t have to do everything (or anything) as soon as they’re given.

The world can wait.

Let’s remember to have days for music.

For times when we allow ourselves to recline and lift our feet off of the floor.

And for realizing that this world is beautiful, if only we allow ourselves to take enough time to realize it.

Thank you, Gabaldon, for the continuous remembrance, and thank you, LM, for being home.