Keep on looking, keep on swimming

"When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do? Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." –Dory in Finding Nemo

I ticked something off a personal bucket list in the last quarter of 2013. Oh, was 2013 just yesterday? That item was to pose for a picture inside a swimming pool, one emptied of water. Of course, I had to be extra-careful going down and up after the clicks were done. The old machine I inhabit isn't what it used to be.

However, the image that stayed with me was of young missy Widsy, daughter of Jemil and Patch Araos. She wore a dress with a print of Tinkerbell, a character in the James Barrie tale of Peter Pan.

Looking at this picture on New Year's morning, I am transported again to the time when Dad took me out to watch the Disney animation of Peter Pan back when I was as tall as Widsy. We saw it at Republic Theater in Manila--now I don't know, I don't care what has become of that landmark building. Present-day requirements have a way of demolishing the past.

But the story of Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up, never faded. I have a remembrance of that little girl who thought Neverland was so real. That very night after we watched the movie, I gazed out of my grandmother's grilled window and tried to spot Neverland in the sky.

May new times find us all gazing out of or looking through similar but unfettered windows.

And keep on swimming.


Widsy in an emptied pool in Laguna Photo by Babeth Lolarga

Who's that other girl?

Yesterday I sat through four hours of the televised opening of the London Olympics, moved many times but especially when the Peter Pan tableau was presented. Only because it made me remember my father who took me to watch the Disney cartoon at the old, now demolished, Republic Theater in Manila.

That same evening, I gazed up from the grilled windows of the family house in Sampaloc, Manila, and wondered which star represented Neverland. For many nights after, I felt like Wendy looking up and trying to pick out the "second star to the right and straight on till morning." Even at age six or seven, I felt strongly the urge to escape.

Going through the shelves for something that may interest her while Dora sits by idly

When in Baguio for visits, this Booboo tries to be unobtrusive with the digicam so I can document the moves of growing Butones. She seems my opposite in my youthful desire to flee my earthly station.

She looks over and under, sideways and up for something to occupy her time. I imagine her to be like her new companion, an explorer. I hope she never loses her sense of wonder and the compulsion to discover.

Frisbee? Maybe in two, three more years, Butones, you can toss it and Grumpa will catch.

"Mi amiga, donde has estado? Vamos a jugar!"

Photos by Booboo