Mommy-Hungry and Burping Dumaguete

(Manuel continues to fill-in for Angel...) Adi whimpered himself to sleep last night. He really misses his mom. Yep, I miss her too, and I also sorely miss my voice which has now gone hoarse from saying: "Don't worry, she'll be home soon..."

That's the price we pay for going through Life too quickly. You're probably familiar with realizing the value of something or someone only after you've tasted her absence. Perhaps that's what feeds our sense of nostalgia--this longing for something we've readily had, but tended to be oblivious of in the past.

We chomp through scenes and memories and gulp them whole, then wish we had chewed more carefully decades later. Heck, just ask anyone pining for Dumaguete (Negros Oriental, Philippines) and Silliman University, which is celebrating its centennial this year. (A hundred happy birthdays to you!)

My dad reminisces about life in Piapi, summers in Camp Lookout, and schooldays in Silliman. Back then, you got to live on campus.

Make that Live on campus--inspiring professors, lots of cultural events, early dinners by 5:30pm because the twin peaks of Cuernos de Negros (the Horns of Negros) towering on the west cast orange-purple shadows and ushered early sunsets to Dumaguete, plus the mad rush to woo lovely coeds before the 9:00pm curfew imposed by dormitory manangs.

*BURP*

Excuse me. Nostalgia is easy because you know it will never come back. You simply sit back and enjoy the mental movie, similar to sinking in your chair and musing over the most satisfying meal you've relished in some place you can't return to.

Waiting for someone's return, however, is more difficult, because you miserably count the minutes that have melted in the past while badgering the crawl of hours and days that separate you from her next embrace.

Geez. It's sunny right now, but it's also raining. In the Philippines we say that May kinakasal na langaw ("A fly is getting married"). That's something that hasn't quite made the list of worldwide sayings that people utter when it's raining and sunny at the same time.

(Ack. This weather is making me warm on the outside and cold on the inside.)

I'm hungry. In my heart, my head, and my tummy. Excuse me while I go grab lunch.