WHEN finally our band who last played together at MTS more than fifteen years ago, met for our vocalist’s birthday bash and brief visit to Davao, even to say the phrase, ‘a lot has changed’ in all of us, seemed quite old. Aside from our appearances (pudgy around the waistline), the food and drink preferences (less pork more veggies) and the content of our small talk (from the rowdy to the calm speak of grownups), all seemed to have already surpassed the tito or “uncle” stages.
In even just a few more years (less than a decade to be exact), many would be landing smoothly (like me) into the elder section, where just coffee and tea in the evening will already have replaced tobacco and hard drinks after a light dinner. At this, our reunion of friends, it’s clear that most of us are already getting there, with red wine favored over whiskey and purely no more sneaking out somewhere to smoke. Healthy living!
After a quick look around, one can honestly proclaim the obvious; that despite the changes, we’re all ‘friends still’ and more important, sharing the same passion for music we’ve missed playing together. That seems adequate enough, in fact, who’s to complain, aside from our own families, that’s all we’ll ever need. And as we talked about our own kids, they’ve all grown, with a few also out somewhere enjoying the evening as friends do. This and other topics filled our conversation but none better than how we’ve made it past the last few years.
Looking back at all we have been through in a short span of just two years, it might even be fair to say, ‘squeeze in all of our fifteen years of not seeing each other into just the two years of Covid and they would still fit easy, in terms of stress level, with room to spare.
If there were any measurement available to check how deeply everyone has been stressed out, much less directly affected by the quarantined two years, that might prove to be barometer enough at seeing how any group of friends, meeting again would fare in the covid aftermath. That is the funny thing about the whole experience for us, we’ve all clearly changed but at the same time, we’re still the same. As Bruce Hornsby aptly sings it, “That’s just the way it is, some things never change.”
As we wrapped the short affair, I guess everywhere in the city, groups like ours have had a go at it, at trying to take back our lost times. Even with the risk of corona still out there somewhere, we deserve a little time like this, as our vocalist’s mate told us. Life is short, so when we can, have a go meeting with friends and those close to us.
