The Fabric that I had just begun to appreciate in Boracay, the flux between paradise and party people, is at the moment being razed, permanently lost. A sense of appreciation of something that is most conspicuous in its absence and which many do not have the time, resources, or temperament to appreciate. I know I am an outlier in this churning world of minimally checked growth. How to quantify quality of life of the masses, when the luxury condo is so controlled, lifelike?
Above: A momentary opening of light.. an old building razed next to the Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Makati (Philippines banking and expat center) reveals a long hidden side of the church. A tribe of vagrant kids resides in the rubble. This momentary reveal will soon be subsumed by fresh girders for a taller building, relic hidden again. And the kids, they will move to the next site of demolition and imminent outsized growth.
Literary fans, I apologize. The clamor has been strong, the urge to know about Kyle, Dylan, Mustang, Sumuru. I have been trying to find a way forward, get to the parts of the story I have already mapped out. It is a bit like looking up a cliff face to a ledge and not quite knowing how to free climb there. I relish these moments when the writing slows in a way. Some call it writer's block, I call it long form meditation.... finding exactly how the story and characters relate through intuition, purposefully ignoring set pathways. That is the point in a way of Arisugawa Park.. layered depths, a sense of life that is not always neat. The struggle of getting up on some days. Hard to pull off in a serial novel, interesting to try.
Here, a walk on the margins along a long-tamed, pungent trickle of water. Let this gallery guide you through one of the hidden places in Quezon City I most enjoy: