i may have spoken too soon. just a day after i rhapsodized about spring settling down and the electric possibility of summer soon, the rains came. dreary london rain.
and with it, the temperature dipped once more to late winter territories. not to mention the gloom the overcast ushered - somehow gladly - back in.
it'’s not that bad, really. it'’s not that just good, either. spring good.
but just as spring can'’t make up its mind around here in the east coast, in the island i grew up in, it would be the season of decidedly blistering heat.
with the sea breezes taking their summer breaks as well, this, logically, should have been great fishing season. but alas, it is the most venturesome. for the vilest sea squalls always blow this time of the year.
but this didn'’t deter us, swarthy, pimply school kids, from dreaming then of finally becoming men.
summer months of my childhood meant dreaming of being allowed by our parents to join the foul mouthed crew of any of those well lighted fishing rigs ready to prowl the seas way beyond the island’'s iridescent blue green horizon.
but me being out in the open sea, that was just out of the question with my mother. and she had to concoct stuff for me to do, instead.
she had to shepherd me to sedate bible camps. and when that circuit has been exhausted by mid april, she would put me behind the cash register of our little store in the market. this almost made me forget my dream of being in one of those fishing trawls. the juicy prospects of wangling loose bills from the cash box somehow did it.
but then my best friend would drop in at the store. this whenever the purse seiner he’'s apprenticing in, sort of, would dock back in our island.
and he would regale me with the adventures he had in the high seas. but isn'’t it dangerous? i once asked him. the tempests, they’'re nasty.
not really, he said dismissively after slurping down the soda i offered him in exchange for his tales.
it’s not the wind. it’s not even the dark water. it'’s them fish. the lapu-lapu, the stingrays, the danggit zooming into the boat like mad crazy bullets.
that couldn'’t be possible, i was beyond belief.
you don’t believe me? just ask manong goryo.
manong goryo was the town's bell ringer. tending the belfry was the only job he could apply for after he lost his left arm in a freak fishing accident.
but it was a malfunctioning net that did it, i argued.
no, he said with finality. when you’'re out there, there’'s no need to worry about the wind or the waves. beware, instead, of mad fishes raining down on one’'s boat.
going out to buy me lunch earlier, my appetite was quickly smothered by the darkness, the gloominess outside. the air had this rawness that is not particularly appetizing during meals.
and the unrelenting rain, it nipped at my still dry umbrella like a school of hungry fish at a fresh live bait.