I have always likened my summers to those summers of my childhood vacations.
And every passing year, I feel like it's slipping further away from me on and on.
I have always imagined another summer full of sun, sand and fun.
Like that of my childhood days
that have been long gone.
I say to the sun; "please, even just another one."
But then I've lost count of how many summers have passed,
and all it did was pass me by.
I've lost track of how much time and how much of my dreams has been gone,
and how they just all fly.
I pray to the sea; "please, don't kiss me goodbye."
I kept waiting and chasing for summer,
but then maybe summer also thought
I am to be chased away.
I won't hold it against the rains
that pours in the middle of May,
I just hold my palms together and pray.
I sing to the sands; "please, I don't mind that you are gray!"
Sometimes, I crave the mango ice candies that our rich neighbor used to make and sell.
The sounds of my old coin bank whenever I would shake it, like a captivating church bell.
Every summer, they go to Guimaras and back to Manila to sell mangoes from their farmland.
Mangoes that I remember were bigger than my head, but as smooth as my hand.
But their matriarch passed when I was in fifth grade and stopped making them since.
Looking back, I feel like that's also when my childhood have died, felt her last kiss.
Now sometimes, I think about how I would never feel the delight of my childhood summers ever again.
Like how I would never taste the sweet mango ice candy that my childhood neighbor used to make in May.
Now sometimes, I wallow in fear over how I'll never get to feel the summer that my soul is so craving anymore.
Like how I would chase summer, only to be followed by the rain and thunders, by the threat of a low tide shore.
God I hope I'm wrong.
I really hope I'm wrong.
So I say, pray and sing,
to the sands, sun and sea;
"May you bring my childhood,
my old summers back to me!"
Childhood in the Philippines are made of mangoes, sun, summer, sand, ice candies... maybe these are just the medicines that we need again, as adults braving the crazy world away.
