Q Diaries #2

How is everyone on the planet? It’s half of the year and nothing is normal yet--- no school days, no mass transportation and not much rush for work.  At home, most days are ok but some days stretch out like a horizon across the sea. It’s funny how a usually comforting thing like that can also be associated with dread and boredom. I welcome the perspective for a change.  Anyway, the sea and its horizon will come soon and the dread will be absent.

From among my friends, I’m the one who has been routinely outside. I’m not into having groceries delivered when the lockdown came about.  I still do run out for grocery and lately, because of road restrictions, I have trooped to the local palengke or outdoor market.  I like to sink my feet out in the palengke--- yes, with the filth and smell, the Manila summer heat, the murky patches, unidentified grime and lovely faces of grit on every hard knock vendor. Clearly, my local palengke is not first world but cheap and good vegetables are heaven sent. A little price off from the suki is a winner too (something you don't get in the grocery).

This is the Baguio Market. One of the nicest markets I've been to but i don't live in Baguio, unfortunately.

I still like the comforts of air conditioning but it doesn't make me feel like a part of this world as when I am in the palengke. It's a place that grounds me to humility and simplicity. It's a self check of my ego; to downsize it when I become too proud to be bothered by little things or too up there in my cushioned bourgeois bubble. Everyone in the palengke is moving and the energy is kinetic even at off peak hours. No slow pokes here. Almost everyone looks like an expert in the kitchen ( they know a bad veggie even if it looks good by smelling it haha). I love that it has its own brand of zen amidst the noise. Everyone is making a living despite its discomforts and I want that kind of grit to be rubbed on me. It keeps me rooted and yet looking out to be tall, ya know? Indeed, the palengke is all heart and hustle. Thank you to the pandemic as i have rediscovered the joys and philosophy of the local palengke.