coming home: thank you, manila

Sunset, Manila Bay & city traffic.


I prescribe to the saying: "home is where the heart is."

Well, this little heart of mine has been on the move. Literally and figuratively. So the term "home" has been relative for the last year now. It has been a rented space in Boracay; my sister's couch in Brooklyn, NY; a yoga mat in Seattle; an attic in Bellingham, Washington; an old couch in my mother's new apartment in Los Angeles; a rooftop studio in Mysore, India; and several beds that new and old friends lovingly fluffed up for me between California and Hong Kong.

For the last two months, home has been where I parked most of my stuff before I went on this journey-with-no-end-in-sight nearly a year ago, my family house in the southern suburbs of Manila. In my twenties, I lived in this house from time to time, sometimes for months at a time, maybe even a year once or twice. After returning to the Philippines as an adult, I lived in Manila for 7 years in all, before moving to Boracay 5 years ago.

So, it's been an interesting time. With the quality of "coming home" that you don't get when you're couch surfing. I'm in my old room, surrounded by things I hardly remember owning and a closet of clothes that seem to harken back to different lives, different incarnations of me. And all around me, an entire household is pulsating at a different rate that I'm used to. It is in their heart that my own temporarily takes refuge as I navigate a city that I used to know so well.

The truth is everything changes. People change. The city has changed too, though it's spirit continues to be a combination of the sweet easy-going life and total and absolute chaos all rolled into one hot urban heap of a traffic jam.

I have changed too. Though coming home has really helped me realize how much.

Perhaps, that is what home--as in our places of origin--is: the yardstick of our lives, in which we can measure out how much we've grown and what things really matter to us. Where we can compare our present height against our old selves. Where we can test our abilities to helm through old patterns that might seem very natural in that place. Or where we can be tested by old friends and family who are used to seeing us a certain way.

I have a lot to be grateful for during this last homecoming: my father's swift recovery from dengue, the opportunities to share with the city's blossoming yoga community, and the chance to reconnect with family and friends. Still, one of the greatest gifts of coming home is perspective. Thank you, Manila, I see.

Next stop, Boracay...

manila’s parting message

Manila. Again, I am struck again by this idea: there are no coincidences.

It’s been a crazy couple of days, the last in the Philippines for the next 5 months. Totally in keeping with my vata-deranged self, I flew around crazily running errands, seeing friends, spending time with family. I’ve been whining a little, how little time there was to sit and absorb all that has happened in the months that I’ve been traveling.

But now, here, waiting for my flight to Kuala Lumpur at the airport, I see how this short time at home has been grounding, recharging and reaffirming. Amidst all the activity, it has served as a pause in between breaths, a small instance of stillness filled with volumes of new understanding.

Among the many happy “happenstances,” that occurred over my last day here was bumping into Pi, my friend and inner dance teacher who was at M Café to meet our mutual friend Claudia, who I knew was stuck in Caticlan due to torrential rains.

Pi, who’s been privy to some of my recent struggles, asked how I was doing. I explained that I was finding things difficult until, that is, I returned to home to the Philippines.

“Of course, that makes sense,” Pi said. And just like that I realized that coming home did have a profound effect. I know who I am here. That somehow, the heat and humidity, the torrential rains, the tropical green, this land of extremes is a part of my inner strength. I have felt her grounding power. The Philippines has steadied me, reigned in my senses and revived me to myself.

After my brief meeting with Pi, I had the pleasure of catching Martha Atienza’s video presentation at Ayala Museum. An old friend, Martha is an artist and filmmaker whose project “My Heart is Buried in the Sea” looks at her own journey to her childhood home Bantayan Island. I could relate to her journey.

Clara Balaguer, my fellow little heathen and Office of Culture and Design’s mastermind also brought in another amazing director from Spain, Carlos, who captures the “blank spaces” in the lives of ordinary people, seemingly insignificant, but totally thought provoking and meaningful.

I couldn’t help but think that I was meant to be there, to hear from these directors/explorers, to learn about how they documented their journey, to experience the different ways of approaching this process of capturing people, of reaching out, of making meaning out of the everyday mysteries of life.

Later, when I returned home, I was assaulted by a barrage of questions from my aunt’s boyfriend, who I met for the first time. He was trying to understand yoga and decided to interview me. Tired and hungry after being stuck in Manila rain-induced traffic, it was somewhat a challenge, but I managed to answer eloquently. And this amazed me, I’m not often put on the spot like that and he asked some big questions. As I listened to myself speak, I realized, I actually understood what I was talking about. I was actually making sense.

When I muse about those last moments in the Manila, I like to think that the Universe was trying to give me some parting advice: Home is here for me, I can always draw on its strength, it will always welcome me back. But for now, I must travel. And as I do so I should work towards documenting it in creative, new ways. Now as I go off on my second trip to India, I should trust myself and what I understand about this amazing process called yoga, that the foundations are now there to build greater understanding. Thus the universe sends me out on a new and exciting adventure.

manila madness

Nothing makes sense in Manila. And for what ever reason, everyone seems to be ok with that. Everyone's complicit in their total disregard to the law. All sorts of laws. Legal laws. Rules of engagement. Laws of time and space.

I knew it the moment the plane landed, just a couple of days ago. We'd barely come to a stop when the springy sounds of seat-belts being hastily unbuckled could be heard throughout the cabin and people were springing out of their seats to race--where? to what purpose? The seat-belt sign still lit up. I breathe and think to myself, welcome...home.

I've come home to reconnect with family and friends, to unpack, do laundry and repack for India. "Home" right now is where I have the remainder of "my stuff," which is literally stuffed in my old room at my dad's house. Though its been 5 years since I've lived in this crazy city, I still feel its madness. I come home here regularly to visit family and friends and to plug into modern day urban living--necessary when living on a 7-kilometer island like Boracay for the last 5 years.

And while this trip is short, 6 days left now, I am buzzing with the frenetic energy of a developing city, progress amidst abject poverty, people rushing and yet maintaining a snail's pace, so completely different from America's land of plenty--even in these times of economic instability.

I try not to make judgments--I used to all the time, when comparing my two homelands. The US and the Philippines are just different. Plainly, simply different.

Part of what makes the Philippines special is its difference too. I love the heat, so humid, so sultry this rainy season. My practice yesterday morning was, for me at least, the perfect temperature, flexibility so supported by this beautiful warm air. The warmth is in the people as well. I could feel it instantly coming into the shala where I practice. In comparison, people in the US are so serious.

I love the feeling of festivity that seems so inherent in our culture. It's early October and already there are signs of Christmas. And this flagrant love, nay, obsession, for the holiday is most apparent in my own family home. As I first drove up the decor outside was in full support of the up and coming Hallow's Eve. Inside, however, it is a bizarre Christmas wonderland with garlands, holiday knick-knacks, and trees (yes, plural. I'm almost horrified to admit it, but when I arrived October 6 there were already 2 Christmas trees up, fully decorated. The second tree pictured above is dedicated to my niece, which hopefully explains the Hello Kitty theme). Then there's the little Santas (also plural) from different parts of the world--it must be said that my family does gravitate towards the extreme of the extreme here, but they are tapping into a national consciousness that wholeheartedly embraces Christmas to death.

Its weird to be home. And home is crazy. But if I'm to be completely honest that's what I like the best about it.