The smell of damp earth

I go home during lunch now to play with Umi, have some home-cooked lunch by Nang Vi, and express milk. Because of this, lunch breaks are literally a break for me - a pause from what I got myself engrossed with at work in the morning (which sometimes are actually guilt-filled non-work activities). Although I usually rush to finish all these lunch activities given the time constraint, I actually find these lunch breaks refreshing. Well, what could be more refreshing than playing with a 5-month-old kiddo who just laughs at the funny sounds I make?

However, as with many things, there's always a BUT. And the big BUT is that I find it utterly dragging to go back to the office after these lunch breaks. I used to run half marathons and yet I get so tired walking for about 200 meters from my place to the house. It always comes up to me, in the middle of whatever I am thinking during these seemingly long walks, that my place is SO NEAR, YET SO FAR FROM THE OFFICE! Ugh!

I told you about these different thoughts that come up to me while walking. As I walked back this afternoon, I thought of gardening. And not actually posting this activity on Facebook. I thought to myself, this Facebook has created a phenomenon. When was actually the last time you thought about something without thinking of not posting it on Facebook? I mean, even if your better judgement eventually won and you decided not to post it, you still initially considered posting it anyway.

My mental ramblings continued. Gone were the days when you do something without having to let other people know about it. I wish I can go back to those summers that were spent tilling the soil in front of our house, planting duranta along the walkway to our porch (and that rose that eventually grew and bore flowers), painting those horses from the paint-by-number kit that I bought from a nearby city, and memorizing country capitals that were listed at the back of a world map that a friend gave me. Those were just the days when there were less distractions - no mobile phones, no internet connection, and the fact that my house was not easily accessible by my schoolmates.

Those were the days, I thought, as I neared the office gate. I walked past a small garden - and wondered what the plants are - then past someone tilling the soil. And there! THERE! The smell of soil, that warm scent of damp earth, filled me for a brief moment. It suddenly brought those gardening memories at home or in school alive. Those simpler, humbler moments all came back to their crisp lives for a short instance. And then, I have to go back to work. Or start working...

Talking about coincidence? Or fate? Nah, whatever.

You know what

I'm quite happy with what I have done here - compiling my random thoughts since June 2010. This platform has indeed placed some structure to my otherwise messy state of mind.

Maraming salamat, blogspot. =)

Food treat and looking back on an old daydream

****Main events happened on July 6, 2010.****

In my failed attempt to find Mr. Teh Tarik Cartel's Mocha Dinosaur near my university tonight, I treated myself to Pulut Hitam with a coconut bun at Coffee Express along Victoria St. I thought I was going to be full with it but later on, realized that my stomach still has room for another treat. In a stall across the one where I bought my Pulut Hitam, I saw my recent favorite - fried dumplings! You could certainly guess what I did next. Yum yum!

After Coffee Express, I decided to walk further away from SMU. My feet brought me along Bain Street, passing by art stalls until I saw this quaint coffee shop called Food for Thought just across the National Library. The name brought memories of a sandwich stall, the likes of Subway inside the Ateneo, of the same name. I went in to check the menu and eventually decided to order a cup of hot chocolate and a green tea muffin. The interior walls of the shop were decorated with posters of the cafe's advocacies. It turns out that this coffee shop is one of the businesses of a group of friends who decided to open a business that would support certain less fortunate groups and projects dedicated to some development issues. The group has promised to spend at least 10% of their profits to education, improving water quality in developing Asian countries, and more that I cannot recall while writing this.

When I was still in high school, I would find myself daydreaming of putting up a business. I would open up a restaurant in Cagayan de Oro where the beef would be sourced from my grandmother's ranch, pork and vegetables from piggeries and farms grown in Santa Fe and nearby barangays, and the fish, I didn't think about it that time. Thinking about it now, I can probably source it from my mother's hometown of Medina, Mis. Oriental. The cakes will be personally baked by my mother who's really good at baking. But before that, I wanted to develop my grandmother's ranch and put up a vegetable farm in the vicinity of the ranch. Eventually, I would also start a flower farm. The goods would be mostly for exports but a portion will supply my restaurant's needs. The resto will also feature a cozy corner where students and intellectuals could just stay to read books that are available inside while treating themselves to a cup of coffee like the one prepared by my grandmother when I was younger and she was still more active. Outside my resto, there would be a small flower shop that sells flowers from my farm.

So that was my dream and it could still be my dream today. I thought then that I wanted to put up a business that is close to my heart, one that carries my childhood memories and interests as I grew up. Second, such an endeavor would give me the opportunity to provide constant livelihood to the people in my barrio. I have always felt the need to return or at least contribute something to my place given that I have been blessed to explore the world outside Santa Fe. Sometimes, when I participate in outreach activities in Manila, I feel guilty that I am not channelling my energy to helping "my people", instead.

So being inside Food for Thought reminded me of a childhood vision of myself, five years from now. Can I really do these in five years? I have doubts because it would require me to go back to Bukidnon to process all these while I have a research career that I am hoping I can build for myself within five years as well. However, I also know that the Lord paves the way for the sincerest of our dreams to come to fruition. I might be headed close to these grand dreams of mine in the years to come, after all. For instance, the desire of serving the people and engaging in social entrepreneurship is slowly growing into me these days. I hope I will get the chance to develop this desire and translate it into action in the coming years. Maybe not in five years; maybe earlier, maybe later.