Just recently, an old friend brought me to an offbeat place outside the city that offered
rare farm-to-table fare. This was after I twice refused her invitation until I finally thought,
where could my sense of adventure have gone? To my surprise, the place served
wonderfully-cooked French meals which, I’m sure, my other friends would salivate over.
Because of this, I am now adding this little farm of a café, with its cozy interior, to our
ever-growing, all-time collection of special nooks.
I’m pretty sure that everyone has, in their memory, an assemblage of special places
where they return to, in case they momentarily need to be free of the daily stress. What
I have is a tiny list of favorite places I’ve safely tucked in this gray putty between me
ears.
During our high school days, one such place was Times Beach. Looking at it now, with
its rows upon rows of food stalls, beer houses, restaurants (and motels to boot), one
couldn’t imagine that Times Beach was once an isolated paradise whose expanse of a
clean beachfront exploded into view, once you’ve broken through the dense green and
the tall cogon grass that hid it from the world. Then during my college years, it became
our favorite haunt to jam through the night. Incidentally, that was where some of our
compositions took root.
Another extraordinary location for me is our very own Mt. Apo. For those who have
stood at its peak, directly behind is a little clearing that I fondly named as the valley of
winds. On any good day, one could watch the clouds literally rolling in like a thick mist of
white, which is an astonishing sight to behold. Until this day, whenever I remember see
its image in my mind, the quiet and peaceful isolation of being alone (for a few minutes
at least) at our highest peak returns, and that calms me immensely.
And then finally, there is the Jesuit retreat house located at the reservation near the foot
of Mt. Apo. Now I don’t know if it still exists, but during my freshman year, we had
stayed there for a few days. Likened to the proverbial cabin in the woods, its complete
remoteness is compensated by a well-stocked library that introduced me to the works of
Khalil Gibran. A strawberry field nearby was also another source of simple comfort until
a watchman told us to stop eating because they just sprayed yesterday.
Now, I am certain your special secret places may differ from mine, and that’s alright. We
are all products of our unique experiences anyway. What’s important is that we have
them safely stored in that 4 gig USB-brain of ours to serve as soothing balm when we
need them for our life struggles. As one buddy who loves to meditate often said: Always
imagine yourself in a happy place.
I’ve just shown you my top four. I would’ve loved to include six more to make a top ten
but that would make this a lengthier chitchat of a column. I just wish it’d get you looking
back to your own special places for comfort in these times.
