At the second movie today, something happened to me. I felt what seemed like a tiny bug crawling on my leg. What happened was, it reminded me of where I was. Happy to be in a cozy new cinema with only about 15 other people in the audience, five minutes away from home. Then wham! my chest suddenly went heavy remembering what stood there BEFORE the mall was built.
Just five years ago these were fields of cogon...where we watched shrikes perched on thin branches. Further into Nuvali, fields where in March kites were flown. Actually, there were kites being flown yesterday, and I'm not sure if it was an event open to the public, but it was certainly not in the same scale as the kite-flying events of five years ago.
There were many children in the malls' play areas, the parking lots immediately filled by dusk. So many people. Just mid-week there were press releases by the POPCOM (Population Commission) about...overcrowding in Metro Manila and the move toward Calabarzon. Here we are.
I still find it a bit ironic...to have to have fitness gyms and equipment in a place where people (used to, some still do) enjoyed walking, running and biking outdoors. I remember thinking about a correlation between the existence of malls, and obesity---because a lot of the people I first met here were fit and enjoyed the outdoors versus in the more urban areas where, really...fat people were in the indoor malls.
I know...I'm not making that much sense again, with disconnected statements. I am just ranting again, and calling myself...a hypocrite about this.
Things are just not the same anymore. And you know what? Everybody is coughing, right? Suddenly, kids whose asthma allergies have not occurred since two years ago, are suddenly sick again. And I have a theory.
CONSTRUCTION DUST.
Well, I will end with this shot, not a particularly great shot...taken at a cafe on the ridge. Where I stared, very cold due to cold winds even at 11 a.m. The Taal lake was visible but not in this photo. A waiter came and said "Ma'am, nakakamangha diba", referring to the view... I asked if he probably was not from the area...and he said he was from there, from Cavite. It was nice that this waiter, with artista looks, admired the view as much as most of the customers...and paused to stare himself. Then he said..."Ganito yan ma'am...'pag heartbroken ka, sigaw ka lang dyan..."
Well, I guess I AM heartbroken...torn...appreciate the paved paradise, do I? I seem to have no choice.
