The Quiapo Experience Part 1

I am in my new favorite hang out place in Bulacan, a secluded yellow cab where a boy is always found there with his computer, enjoying 473 ml of Ice Cold Lemon Flavored Sola Iced Tea after jogging in the afternoon.

I accomplished a few stuff today. My brain is still on the process of digesting things that had happened today and upto know, while I’m typing inside a yellow cab, I am still processing.

Oh what a great dream I had the other day, I woke up as a hero for somehow putting the closing the collar of a wardrobe malfunction of a groom… There we were, on a floating garden wedding above the four awesome towers of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona… Everyone else was in panic of how the wedding was on the brink of being called off since the groom was missing...

As I closed the collar of the groom’s pina Barong, the garden doors opened revealing the groom, and the wedding happened meters above, floating in Barcelona, a genuine dream wedding. And when the groom kissed the bride, a gustling wind sent everyone flying, even separating the groom and bride, as well as separating me from my sleep.

Oh and today, great news, I have now a Philippine International Driver’s License... My boss ordered me to have a license that will allow me to drive in France. Holala, I’m rather excited, the last time we were together, she mentioned she wanted to dispose already of her 2007 CLS Mercedes Benz and opt for a Maserati. Geeze, I don’t mind being her driver!

After my quest for a driver’s license, I dropped by Quiapo.

My brain right now is above mental capacity unto how to handle the happenings in Quiapo today but here it goes.

So I walked along from Doroteo Jose upto Carriedo, walked and walked and walked…

I found everything amazing, its not often that I drop by this place, I found another world and it was a beautiful world I saw down there.

It was just great to see how people organized themselves, the means they would resort to, just to make a living.

Basahan, Antenna, DVDs, Housewares, Clothes, Tsinelas, Cellphones, Shoes, Cookware, Kaldero, Nail Polish, Live shows, Fruits, Duyan, Kulambo, etcetera…

And I know that if I want to see culture of a country, the best place to see it is in the market… and this is exactly what it was.

It was culture. Philippine Culture, an angle of it.

Among the accomplishments that I had in mind when I visited Quiapo today was to visit the church. Finally, it is my first time.

Damn. I love architectures lately. And I saw more than architecture today in that church, I saw Life and questions popped in my head like really a lot of questions…

As I sat down in that long wooden church seat (I forgot the name)… I wondered…

“How many thousands of people have actually sat in this seat where my butt rests now?...

“How many millions of people have actually been in this place…?”

Did their wishes come true?, and many more…

Among questions in my head are thoughts when I saw life of other people sans words, sans conversation, just seeing them together with me in that majestic church.

I saw people walking on their knees in the isle towards the altar, people crying and seems to be praying desperately for their wishes to come true. I wonder why that child who was alone, who was seated a few chairs in front of me was crying.

I think not everyone was just praying for money or win the lotto. I wondered who among there were praying for someone to recover from a disease or praying that someone will remain alive… praying for their kids to finish school or something… or something else I don’t know, prayers there could be as diverse as life is and it just makes me think how lousy some of my prayers or rants are sometimes. The air felt exceptionally thick as I entered this church.

If I were to judge the idea by the way people’s face, the way hands were tightly closed together that moment, the kneels, walking by knees, the low pitched prayers, the stare at the altar with tears about to fall down…

The idea moved me, so much that I just had to pray that I prayed that afternoon to God to help these people, grant their wishes, make their lives easier, ease them from the discomfort that translated through their prayers, tears, gestures, their sacrifices or devotions.

So I took at look at myself… it’s a shame that I seem to throw myself into a level of desperation similar to those I witnessed, so I say, what a weakling I can be sometimes, and ask if its sometimes it is really necessary to fuss much about something. When geeze… I should have realized how silly some of these actually are.

I’m too tired to continue writing now… I’ll talk later about my confession which made me kneel for more than thirty minutes. And it was only on the 10^th minute that I had the idea of turning on Record.

My mind is now handling thoughts in a more manageable proportions.

À la prochaine!