A HOME TO RETURN TO

4-day vacation in the province is an effective work-detox, I still can’t shift to full work mode until now. I arrived in Manila just this am and I just can’t shake off the relaxing ambiance Quirino Province gave me. I’m lucky I have a province to go home to, a home to return to (emo mode on!).

Quirino province is part of Cagayan Valley. Living in a valley means being surrounded by lotsa lotsa mountains. Everywhere I looked around me as a child, I see towering mountains, endless ranges – the Sierra Madre on one side and the ones that separate us from Aurora on the other side. I often wondered why these mountains looked so blue when trees are supposed to be green. Then I came to a conclusion: maybe because the clouds are casting shadows on them? Coz on the other parts of the mountains where the sun is directly shining on, the shade is greener, lighter.

There is so much to miss back there:

• The clouds touching the mountain tops
• The cold breeze (certainly more pleasant than aircons!) that carries the after-harvest smell of the ricefields
• The bulky trees along the road that make the wind chilly and refreshing but at the same time, block the sharp curves ahead! hehe
• The brooks along side the roads half-hidden by the bushes and the trees (i went swimming on some of them when I was but a kid)
• The mosquitoes? hehe (I definitely prefer them over the mice and the cockroaches of the city!)
• The peace, the silence – there are but few vehicles passing the highway, no people strolling around except for some kids playing on the barangay road
• Shall I continue? the list might drag on!
  

There is really nothing special about our province – no special delicacies for pasalubong, no special products or weavings or carvings; the only nice places we have are the caves, some hidden water falls and I think we have rapids too, but these sites haven’t been the kinds that would invite lotsa tourists over. But like what the Little Prince said about his rose.

"To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”

The only thing special about Quirino is that it is MY province. It houses the most precious of my memories – the times I wondered, the questions I asked as a child, the framework of the dreams which I am now beginning to realize in the city, and more importantly, the people I will never get tired of getting excited to see again – my family.

I so love vacations! =)