Quaranthoughts in these quarantimes

I can watch sunsets now. Everyday.

Around this time two months ago before the lockdown, I would be in the office in a silent debate about whether to stay a bit more and let the mad rush pass or brave it and go home. I would look through the office's floor-to-ceiling windows with the sea of backlights and headlights confirming the state of traffic affairs below.

With the windows draped, it is the same level of lighting the whole day, every day. The only sign that it was time for anything was the notifications on your laptop, your laptop's clock, the clock on the wall or people moving about - to have lunch, snack and go home, trickling away one by one until almost everyone is gone.

Leaving the office, I would be confronted with sights of cars, traffic lights and people walking. If I am lucky and on cooler nights when I'm not wearing heels, I'd see the moon as I walk, the stars too faint to cut through Manila smog.

Now, my signal that the day is about to end is the sun rays slanting through my window and screen door, baking the already humid dining area. I go out when the sun is more relaxed and watch the hues of blue, orange and pink shift as it starts to hide in the horizon. I can only imagine how gorgeous Manila Bay is at this time of the day.

The force of the sun's wrath beating down on the city mellows, leaving a lingering smell of sweat and heat until it dips to give the moon the stage. I watch the sun end its reign, hiding quickly, seemingly embarrassed by its earlier outburst of heat and glare as we suffered under its fury. And just like that, it bathes us in its glory of colors as a peace offering on the ceiling of which my sky is divided into night and day. Hot and bearable.

I think of having that brandy now.

I start to see more stars and the blanket of blue turns to dark grey above me, still some remnants of pink and orange brush strokes in the sky.

And then the moon takes the night. The dark, calming as always. Beyond the trees from where I could not see, I am sure front liners shuffle home from or to work. The temperature, the news, the bullying from uniformed, powerful men and the intensity of confinement, calmer.

My childhood was like this. Quiet evenings where we would go for walks when there is a breeze and the hot air has lifted.

I look down to a few stragglers -- a jogger, a father and daughter on bikes.

We are still forbidden -- to exercise outside, to touch, to be near, to hug. Even during nighttime.


Two months in the Covid-19 enhanced community quarantine, Manila, Philippines 


"I am an X in an indeterminate equation. And that X is the rock upon which I stand." - Mario Puzo