Q diaries #1

The great ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) in this part of where I'm at in Manila has been lifted. It has ruled for a good 2 months or so... and now we're into the GCQ or general community quarantine. The E has been replaced with a G. I don't know if that's a good thing but it is moving forward alphabetically speaking, it has even skipped the letter F. yay! ha! small wins? yeah!

The jump from enhanced to general is not groundbreaking. It feels the same but a bit worse since the malls have opened albeit carefully with social distancing and other precautions. It seems good on paper  but a mall opening in this third world heat smells like doom in the horizon. You see, our society is a mall going public. We don't have parks around the block and we need mindless walking with free aircon blasting since we're smack in the middle of the equator and ring of fire. It sounds like we're tropical zombies and to some extent we are... sad but kinda true. I have to admit, i like mindless walking with free aircon on days when i don't want to think. And when i don't think, i buy things i don't need. ugh.

I haven't been inside a mall since the lockdown and i'm not looking forward to it.  On most days, I'm  not a big fan of despicable amounts of humanity but I like to be with people. I like
cramped gritty spaces. I like concerts and brushing around people. The last i attended was last year November in Japan and it's a fuckin' U2 concert. It deserves a fuckin' tag since it is U2.  I am so relieved it happened since I've been praying for this band to tour in this side of the planet for almost ten years now.   If U2 had not played a month before the corona virus was discovered, when will they ever tour? I told my good friend it was providence that we got to see them before everything else plied out. After this, when will concerts happen again?


For now, the most that i get to spend out is right outside my window, a pocket garden. It's a bit rustic and scruffy but fancy enough to be a reading nook, cool enough to be a meditation zone and spacious enough to get my glutes cranking.

On nice windy days, the bamboo leaves make a soft rustling sound that i feel so extra like Zhang Zi Yi on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I sit in lotus position complete with hand mudras i searched on the net to keep my skin clear of acne. I zone off at times and i guess, I am there. No cathartic enlightenment like that of Buddha's but i know i am there... there. Wherever cosmic plane that is.  It keeps my mind at peace and my heart softly nestled up until the heat assaults me. Believe me, the heat here in Manila on dry season can attack like the plague and you become a plague yourself.  But that is nothing compared to the chaos beyond my garden and all i want is a little piece on this earth to ground my zen and make me feel like Kung Fu Panda.