Wanderlust

I was never the type to sit still. As early as I can remember, my life was all about movement, motion and curiosity. Like most of my current skills, my Papa planted the seed of wanderlust in me. I was maybe 3 or 4 years old when he would take me in our mint green, 4-door, column-shift, non-airconditioned, Ford “Taunus” with the white-sidewall tires and we’d go for a joy ride to Baguio with nothing more but a jacket and my favorite toy with me.

I remember us pulling out of the driveway while the sun was barely above the horizon. There was no NLEX at the time and we would take MacArthur Highway where we would pass several vintage suspension bridges which were built a few years before World War II and was part of the Art Deco architecture of the era and something that still holds my fascination to this day.

Papa would leave the windows open and let the wind blow through. Every so often he would push the “pop-up” lighter into its slot (which now serves only as an alternate power source for mobile devices). Once ejected, the cylindrical piece of metal which closely resembles a lipstick, was the perfect way to light a cigarette as it uses heated coils which glow red and doesn’t easily get extinguished. I would come to love the smell of a freshly-lit Salem or Philip Morris menthol and I secretly inhaled whenever he lit up with one hand on the wheel and the other grasping the device between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand.

Along the way, I would always marvel at old architectural gems and I was particularly drawn towards railroad tracks. I would stare and follow the vanishing lines. I would always wonder—even to this day—where they led or where they were going. As a kid, I always heard stories of folks taking the Bicol Express to Baguio and to this day, I am curious as to how that is even possible given that there are no railroad tracks that wind up the mountain. I have yet to pursue that dream of following those tracks from its northern tip to where it ends down south.

Even at a young age, I was never interested in the destination itself but rather, the sights, sounds and smells along the way: the pig pens in Bulacan; the marshy waters of Pampanga; burnt leaves and rice stalks as we pass Tarlac and Pangasinan and finally, that earthy whiff of pine as we reach the boundary of Benguet, Mountain Province.

I would stick my head out the window as we passed Clark Air Base, where F-4 “Phantom” and F-5 “Tiger” jets would either buzz by or do “rolls” and combat maneuvers, C-130 “Hercules” and C-5A “Galaxy” planes were either loading or unloading cargo. I would count herons and crows and gasp every time I see a carabao grazing in the rice fields.

Even as a child, I was always an “old school” guy. I love the rustic smell of wood floors and closets and cupboards and walls of both my Papa’s ancestral house on Gen. Lim Street and Mommy’s Happy Glen home. I adored the old Smith Victor “gramophones” and all sorts of antique flat irons that were shaped like an ornate frying pan, a hand-cranked sewing machine, free-standing stove/ovens, my Lolo’s Oldsmobile and archery set and every little thing that seemed like it belonged to a previous century.

A lot of those physical objects have long since been lost in time. I am left mostly with memories, some of which are almost tactile.

I have grown up some, in both years and physique. Still, I look at the world with child-like curiosity. I have ventured out further north and much farther down south, essentially having set foot in almost every patch of ground in this archipelago though I have never gone beyond it. Still, I am drawn to pretty much the same things I have been as a young boy. My yearning to travel has become a nomadic life, never really staying too long in one place.

To this day, I get the same melancholic feeling whenever I depart from somewhere and board a plane for home—wherever that may be. It’s as if I had no wish to ever be chained to anything whether it be work, residence or even a relationship.

As I look back at those years, I now think to myself that although I’ve been most everywhere physically, I have been constantly moving in my mind. There is that insatiable hunger and unquenchable thirst to discover and explore both the world outside my door and inside my mind.

Ever since that first trip that Papa and I took, I knew that the road would be my life. I would become a wanderer with no wish to go home. I am a body in search of my own soul.