My art historian former boss, the eternal-bachelor graphic artist, my funny-chubby managing editor, and even the short and nimble utility guy--the people in my previous writing life--showed off, to me and Anne, their posh new office, and that they could elbow me some room in it ("We could compress and give you space right here," said Denes the graphic guy, pointing over Yam the fun-chub managing ed, showing that the continuous desk held only three people, but could in fact take in four; and one could probably squeeze in between Denes' iMac and Yam's PC: good luck to me, Yam isn't exactly small). Anne and I were visiting.
My former boss, the director of now three culture-and-media-related offices in my acacia-tree populated Diliman alma mater (he used to command just one) was blunt as usual: "So, are you coming back?" I buried my "No" in an awkward laugh.
Anne had to get used, again, to the open-air and thick and fresh air of the campus. Makati fed us only thin air. We moved out of our apartment near UP last December, bringing our cat, taking with me few memories of a savored writing life I can't reclaim. I'm different now. But no one among the smiling faces in the new cozy office can tell.
It's like coming home for the holidays. You see your old room, smell the scents of childhood, touch the old trees, listen to the old people, taste Grandma's cooking, and be reminded of the singular fact that you don't live there anymore.
You watch the old Saturday morning cartoons and catch yourself silly, still enjoying them / and you catch yourself silly, amused that you enjoy them when they're rather lame. You're divided. It's like your holding the hand of a four-year old watching a TV show outside a store's display window. The little kid tugs at you, this won't take long, can we stay a bit longer? The taller you gives in, all right, just a bit, but we have to go later, I have important stuff to do. And you do.
I quit my alma mater's PR office almost two years ago, and I've been churning out copy under unrecommended writing conditions: under an old aircon that could have thudded on my head anytime (during nightshift in anonymous Ortigas building), during daytime in our previous apartment, where neighboring kids yelled at their mothers for yelling at them first, and now, as a species-of-marketing manager where I'm more of a spammer than writer. A pen for hire has seen better times.
One must makes the monies. One yearns to write again. One wants to look out the window and sigh. The kid tugs at you again, and you have to tell him, breaking his heart, but knowing that he'll live through this, because you did...
You can never come home again.
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