To A Time When It Was

May 14, 2006 06:40PM


I was having coffee with Maya and Lovee on one occasion and coffee tasted extraordinarily different from the usual. Perhaps, it was because I was in the company of long lost friends and coffee just made it more exciting. We spent about three to four hours laughing and talking, catching up on each other’s life events since our time together at the university.

So many has happened for each of us. And that one rare time called for another since it felt like there was more to discuss. We promised ourselves that we would do it on another time, when our schedules will fall in place.

Alas! It has been a long time since. I recall in grade school the usual preoccupation that takes place among my classmates and myself at the start of school is not when we are oriented with the different mentors that were going to handle our subjects, but us going over each other’s sets of notebooks, so we can exchange them. We would be so proud and careful of these notebooks that have either covers of celebrities or flowers. We would carry them around with PERSONAL PROPERTY proudly in scripted on the first page. I have a feeling all those classmates of mine are already settled down except for me. Because most of them got married midway in high school, the others I was informed around college.

In fifth grade, our subject teacher, who for some strange reasons we called “UWA”, would refer to me as “Phanny Boy”. This was because I was the daughter of his co-teacher and friend from another district who had the reputation of a math wiz and whose nick was Phanny. So everyday at fifth grade mathemetics, Uwa will call for me, and say, “Phanny Boy, go to the board.” That would mean I would have to get up to the chalkboard and solve the mathematical problem. Much to his ignorance (may his soul rest in peace), that despite I am not dumb in math, I hated math. And I hated being called with such a name. However, the only consolation was, at least some other of my classmates also have their respective nick names that he has baptized us with. There was one certain guy in my class he called “Arangka Poste”, which meant to take a tree from its roots.

It was at this time of my life when I was such a hard head and a bully at school. The most unforgettable person I would instantly associate with for great memories of elementary will have to be Christopher Ignacio. He has been my best bud in first grade, and it had been such fun with him that was short lived. The most memorable, however, was Miguel Ruiz, my first love at fourth grade. The next and last encounters I’ve had with these significant individuals had been when I was in sophomore in high school. And the years have changed them. Chris I’ve bumped into at a school paper convention, already an activist, and Miguel on the road on my way home with my friends who was at that time just in town to visit his foster family and announce his wedding.

High School will always hold a special place in my heart because it is the time in my life when I met and become friends with 10 other great individuals. It will soon be 11 years for the September 12 Gang and I miss them.

Shirlyn, her simplicity and wittiness; Debby and her jumpy disposition; Rosevie, her intelligence and talent; Shalimar, her childlikeness; Allen, his patience; Syrill, his contentment; Marty his jolliness; Romeo, his nonchalance and serenity; Arnel, his laughters; Rogelio, his care and attention.

The September 12 Gang, 11 years since roaming the corridors of our high school, spending afternoons by the jackfruit tree with a guitar and a melody, outings at the beach…

Apart from them, I also have fond memories of Alvin, Julius, Donalyn and so many others. We were one pilot section in high school that was known for its riot.

Yes, high school, it was the era of my One Great Love.

And those sweet four years at the university, time for the crack of adulthood, time for the one who got away. It was a time when I became close friends with Cyrin, Tin, Maya, Lovee, Jason, Yang Chao Lin, Tong Xue Na, Chai JinYong and many others. The few significant events I would associate my college with would be those rare six-string moments at Cy’s house, overnights at Golf (getting drunk for no reason), ghost hunting with Fe Emma and Giovanni, beating magazine deadlines at the library, swooning over the suntanned Chinese exchange from Beijing with Chic-Chic, eating a load of tempura, peanuts and Fried Bananas, cursing the terror teachers, dropping subjects…

I wish for a reunion to be held at a grand oval stadium where all my years of education could meet and all the wonderful people in my old life will be there.

I am writing with the inspiration of finding long lost friends over the net and cell phone.

Ghandi from my college said, “Hope we have a reunion soon. When are you getting married?” Waahhhhhhhhhh!!! How could he possibly ask me about marriage? He further said, “We have already been left at the train station.” He can be rude with the words yet realistic.

Imagine, all these people I have been with for all my life in La Bella Zamboanga. Some are around Asia, others Manila, some scattered around Mindanao, and I am in CEBU with Lovee and Maya. (I don’t even speak BISAYA!!!)

At a time in your elementary, secondary and tertiary schooling, you have asked like already it’s a cliché, “What and where will I be five to ten years from now?”

To the surprise of many, all our aspirations when we were younger have mostly gone on detour. Our directions have taken route when we have been transported to the real “REAL WORLD”.

Five to ten years from now I will have stood at the peak of the Grand Canyon and taken shots of it. I will be seated next to Victoria Holt and Nicholas Sparks on the bookshelves at Power Books and The National Bookstore. I will have had my first Photo Exhibit. I will have built my cottage by the shores with a blue porch where I will write more and enjoy nature. And hopefully, the person whom God has destined for me will be by my side in all these.

One day it will come. I have FAITH.


Copyright ©2006 Theren Alexander