I don't watch much TV or Netflix. I allow 15 minutes of CNN news, strictly after lunch only, to puncture my isolation from the world. Everything else is ambient noise, even the hyper reading of the news and the airing of opinions in radio station DZBB where my brother tunes in every breakfast.
The rest of the day is "wasted" on words. I grapple with words before this seven-year old laptop that threatens to crash any day now. I'm in a race to write about people I know, experiences I've been through, including those involving the senses of smell and taste. I think I can last in a retreat that requires two days of full silence. Just give me this well-worn computer with the thick photo folders, and I'll be all right. Yes, sir, I will.
But I don't think I'll last another month without my companion in silence, Rolly Fernandez. We have a routine of sharing breakfast in companionable silence whether in Baguio or Pasig. Picture shows him reading the day's issue of the Inquirer at Epic Cafè with a cup of black coffee, unsweetened, before him. When I still had a camera, I liked taking un-posed pictures of him.
When we parted in early March, talk of a Luzon-wide lockdown was very far from our thoughts. The agreement was once I was up and about and walking confidently, I'd take the bus back to Baguio in time for our grandchild's ninth birthday. Then Force Majeure came down heavily and ruined all our plans.
But let not talk of lockdowns and morbidity and mortality statistics take the #SimplePleasures out of our lives. At Epic on that ordinary day when Rolly and I each had a plate of Tapsilog, we ended our meal with a shared plate of pudding. We didn't even need a consensus on what dessert we'd have. We just looked at the tray of bread pudding, our eyes met, then an order was placed for a slice of heaven on earth.
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