"GLIMPSE FROM THE PAST"

[pato]

Imagine yourself living in a remote place where there has nothing at all. No electricity, no television, no radio and no fancy stuffs. It was barely a simple house that is made of nipa hut and plywood that can endurably shelter you from the storm.

But despite of all these, you are bounteous by the gifts of nature such as:

You can freely enjoy by swimming together with your contemporaries in the emerald crystal clear water on a tiny islet at the center of the current river; You can jovially spend your leisure time by riding a canoe while fishing at the same time; You can climb in a sturdy mango fruit tree that was luxuriantly growing though it had been tenaciously bent down due to the result of soil erosion at the brink of the river bank while simultaneously diving gleefully into a turquoise rippled water; You would undeniably enjoy from hunting birds and bird’s nest that had nestled up on a swaying branches of the trees; You can hilariously ride in the back of the carabao as being your accomplice in hauling the newly harvested sacks of rice coming from the rice field; You can enjoy catching the slippery cat and mud fishes using the fishing hook and drag net during wet season on the sprawling puddle in the nearby sod land; You would be flabbergasted by the flickering scales of the fishes that was once dazzlingly hit by the petromax light and that was about to be trapped by the “sumbada” fishing net at night; You can abundantly enjoy by eating a starchy cooked young yellow fresh sweet corn adjacent at your house during its season; You can experience and enjoy by collecting some remaining harvested left over rice stalks at summer that had scattered on the rice fields in exchanged of money to be used for buying a school supplies in the coming next school year.

While I was pondering and writing simultaneously these unforgettable childhood memories of mine in Camagong, I can definitively say that life is beautiful despite of having no fancy and dazzling childhood experiences at all.

Life is a constant change indeed. But by truly looking back, I would wish I could have the chance to embrace and experience it again where life is sheer simple and totally pure.