living the curse

People often ask me why I’ve chosen to stay in Tago. “It’s a small pond for a big fish like you,” they say. “With your looks and your skills, you can make it anywhere.”

When this happens, I don't get flattered or offended. Instead, I’m amused. Really, these people don’t know what they’re missing.

Consistent with its name, Tago is secluded. And the confluence of Tago River in the West and the Pacific Ocean in the East makes this hometown of Eugene Villaluz, Moi Ortiz, Maria Montes, Sunday Salvacion, Zandro Limpot, and Sam Milby a dead end.

Strangers, especially foreigners, like Tago the way it is: clean, well thought-out, tranquil. But Tagon-on balikbayans look at it with sadness and longing. In the past, Tago was the center of education and trade. But now, with all the big establishments owned by Tago’s old rich gone, it is a commercial no-man’s-land. And while the neighboring towns are building new homes and structures, Tago is tearing down some of its own, mostly old ones, thus giving vacationing Tagon-on urbanites a dose of what one writer calls landscape amnesia.

The curse at work? Well, not quite.

Tagon-ons, it seems, don’t realize that more than their park, crabs, and pudding, their hometown’s beauty lies in its unhurried pace. And it is in going placidly amidst financial and technological noise and haste of its neighbors that Tago preserves its old world magic.

Cursed or not, I want no urbanization for Tago. In fact, silly it may sound, I wish I had the power to bring Tago back to the time when Tagon-ons had it easy: rising early in the morning to buy fish strung on a midrib instead of being weighed on a scale; lingering at the market to engage in small talk; buying pan de sal placed inside a paper bag twisted at both ends; buying balikutsa inside a garapon sitting on a window; dropping by a house for a quick chat even when one is in a hurry; getting your share of fish---hilas--- from your neighbor’s catch; asking a pinch of salt from your neighbor when you run out of it; sweeping the leaves into a heap in the morning and making a small fire in the afternoon; joining a procession whose head and tail meet; dropping everything for Angelus; appreciating the moon in full glory; watching a falling star blaze a trail in the sky.

Like strangers, I love Tago the way it is. I like it here where laughs are both cheap and priceless. I like it here where life is easy and slow, where moments linger and not flit away, where I lose all sense of time and enjoy the “nowness” of life.

Ahhhhh my sweet beloved Tago. If I can make it anywhere, why not here?


(photo by dr. ted seclon)