Suddenly This Summer (Part 2)

Breakfast was a memory five hours gone, and the stirrings of hunger in our gut now raged like the ocean throwing pieces of itself at the breakwater. By 2pm, we began to drool at each sizzling drizzle of pork fat at the grill, and the tantalizing aroma of cooking meat was answered by a chorus of rumbling responses from tummies beneath the tablecloth.

"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" cried Dudu, the medical student, narrowly missing her trembling fingers as she sliced into tender hunks of char-grilled chops. At the table, Atch and Tatay were making short work of the oysters, dipping them into chili vinegar and downing them with beer.

My Mom hobbled out from the corridor, supporting her sprained ankle with a makeshift bamboo cane. By virtue of her being semi-ambulatory, the duty of manually inflating the kids' life preservers fell to her able lungs. Because vacation time in this extended family has always been spur-of-the-moment, we had, as expected, forgotten to bring the air pump. And If this meant life preservers filled with my mother's exhaled Winston's smoke, then so be it.

The kids were herded, grumbling, into designated places at our al fresco lunch, but the moment food was dumped into their plates, they fell to, burying their faces in cold mangoes and watermelon.

"It's Holy Week, aren't we supposed to fast and abstain from meat?" Someone absently commented, and was roundly ignored.

For a while there was silence as each one forgot the others' existence. Except for some mad scrambling with forks as the grilled milkfish was served, all went juicily, scrumptiously well.

* * * * *

With no surprise, the kids forgot siesta-time entirely. They waddled back into the surf, in the wake of a surfeit of warnings from nervous adults, and chased by their mothers belatedly wagging bottles of sunscreen. The invasion of paradise had just began:

Unbreachable boundaries

Castle Diablo & architect

Eli (straining to evacuate his lunch) with his Mom, on the sand

As sunset approached and the tide receded, the rest of the sun-phobic adults pussy-footed their way across the sand, led by my father with his bottles of beer, plate of left-over milkfish and long-convoluted tales of his (misspent) youth.

Tatay & Atch amid beer, cigarette smoke and stories of the past

Between a rock and a hard place:

With two kids and little privacy, any likely place will do

My Mom was apparently snoring her lunch off in one the air-conditioned rooms, having been the only one to remember her siesta hour(s), but the kids continued their hunt for shrimp and hermit crabs while the rest of us communed with the sunset.

Guard doing tour of duty at man-made shrimp and crab trench

The arid "Martian" landscape

Deedee & Dudu salute the dying sun

In the rush of our hectic lives, the simpler beautiful things often come in last, but that Black Saturday, surrounded by the tang of salty sea air and the red-gold of a setting sun, a sense of calm filled our dark souls and stilled our pounding overworked brains.

Come join me

The traditional Catholic upbringing of our youth demanded penance in time of Lent, and we realized that our penance was in not having appreciated the glory of His Creation, thrown our way each day, often sadly ignored. And in this far-flung bossom of the world, where The Shepherd called out to His sheep, we repented.

Hinigaran sunset