I have been coming here four years and have seen many changes and many things stay the same––what has not happened is a wholesale upending by major developers. The owner of my place, set back among nicely unkempt verdure, is a really nice older couple who had the original nipa beach resort in the then paradisical Boracay, 40 years ago. They still own the land and lease it in 5-10 year increments.
The property has become hemmed in by five-story raw concrete to-the-property-line Korean dive establishments (note that my new favorite bar on the lagoon, izakaya-like in its intimacy and full of cool touches, is also Korean). Yin and yang––no favoritism––define fabric in a way that does not avoid, but does not call out, ethnicity.
My mission right now is to find out exactly where what has turned (with the usual Habagat rains) into a creek-sized stream of raw sewage, carved into the sand, flowing directly into White Beach, is coming from and why––as usual in the Phils (and probably many countries) no one does anything about it or recognizes its existence.
It may be (probably is) coming from new impactful resorts on the property owned by the old couple i stay above. It is flowing out just beside Army Navy, a Philippine-birthed burger and burrito chain that makes surprisingly tasty burritos from (I hear) sustainably sourced ingredients. It extends back some way and I believe the culprit is.... mum's the word. There is also the issue of the constantly overflowing water on my stretch of the beach path. It did not exist before the dive resorts went in and migrated toward front beach with last year's jarring installation of TGIF Fridays in place of some New Zealand owned chill spot, Mint. The motorbikes, which used to not come down the small windy foot-appropriate path, do not help.
A lot to be solved, this small Fabric project is kind of a template. I think the concept is best expressed through David's quest in the fictional Habagat.
#fabric
That is, as soon as I get a little more Arisugawa Park out––this Hayao scene, shifting through dangerously seductive Roppongi, is constipating my creative process. This always happens when there is new writing to be done. I spend days sort of procrastinating, shifting things in my head, before even a trickle will come out. At some point I just plug my nose and jump in.
Writing this blog is a little like playing a four holed bamboo flute. It looks deceptively simple. Yet playing the flute for more than a minute without annoying too many people is an art. Getting the fabric message and purpose across without making enemies. Would have to be Jesus to do that––oh wait, Jesus wasn't batting .1000 in that area either.
Lao Tzu? Ghandi?
#endwriter