fog

One of my earliest memories as a child is of travel. The whole family used to wake up at the crack of dawn, load the family car, and with sandwiches for breakfast carefully stashed in the front seat, head to Manila which we usually reached by mid-afternoon. As we passed by the trees along the highway, all eerie-looking and distant, my childhood self always smiled as the rays of the sun broke through, pushing away the dregs of the night.

Everything was all right again.

Sometimes, like during Christmas, we spent another six hours on the road as we went straight to Baguio, where mornings were very cold, where bonds were strengthened as clouds formed as we speak, like dragon's fire in the still, frigid air of the plateau.

In remembering both of these times, the only thing that lingers is the scent of the fog, like freshly fallen rain on a forest of pines, that enveloped the morning air; and, the way it made everything look so vague and so quiescent, like pictures painted in slow motion.

I always loved these foggy mornings.

But now, another thing reminds me when I think of fog. And unfortunately, it is what everything far from me looks like, all fuzzy forms and moving colors, all vague and misty like the mornings of my childhood travels.

I started reading pocketbooks at such a young age, and being nearsighted since fourth grade has me used to the fact that I can't make out a face ten feet from me, or watch television without getting a headache, or walk through a mall without feeling disoriented. If I don't wear glasses or contact lenses and you're at the other side of the street and call my name, I would just squint and yell back, "Kinsa ka?"

When I came across an article in an old Reader's Digest my mother had lying around last week, I am once again reminded of how my love for books has brought me to another realization. The article, after all, was entitled "Three Days to See."

What struck me most were these words: "I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life… When I recently asked a friend, who had just returned from a long walk in the woods what she observed, she replied, 'Nothing in particular.'

"How was it possible to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy to note? I, who cannot see, find hundred of things that interest me through mere touch… At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight."

How much more indeed.

I have always thought that I would rather lose a leg than an eye; I'd rather not walk than not see. Because so many things in this world is taken in by sight, as we meet new people, travel to new places, learn, explore, discover.

And even if it is often hard and inconvenient, I guess being near-sighted does have one big impact in my life: It has taught me to be grateful that I can still see the world grow up and change right before my eyes.

I am a nature-lover, a bookworm, a music and art enthusiast, a shopping enthusiast, a food addict, a television and movie addict, a lover of life, of sound, of places and people.

I want to touch a dolphin in Bais, snorkel in the reefs of Apo Island, learn how to drive, visit a well-known art gallery, learn to play the piano, and join the World Wildlife Fund and the Red Cross. All these I want to do before I graduate from college.

As written in the article, "Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you…"

There are so many things to do in life to simply close our eyes to the wonder of it all. Rejoice in laughter, catch images of words, and delight in color. Live.