“…A sentimental person thinks things will last—a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.” – Amory Blaine, This Side of Paradise.
I’m convinced it’s not the same light from before. At 16, we had the sun in our eyes running around that oval. Summer’s made for kids. Who else can endure that punishing heat. We were in Ultra* that time and I was happy. There was more sky there.
There were perks to being a second-rate athlete like me back then. The coach never minded you. The best you could hope for was to be a filler, an understudy for the big shots. Meanwhile, you get the P.E. exemption, the varsity merch, and you get to run, of course. I suppose anyone was allowed to run anyway but it was nice to have company. In short, it was like being a middle child, you get the all the benefits of the other siblings without your parents’ scrutiny. I was very good at being a middle child.
I can’t believe there was a time when I could run. That I could explode at full speed (never mind that that was a fraction of their record times).
I liked Ultra a lot. Going there felt like a field trip even if it was a stone’s throw away from campus. It was a time before Capitol Commons, before Estancia. For us, Jewels convenience store was the go-to commercial center.
Of course, that’s hardly historic. Decades before that, dad wandered around the same hallowed grounds. Ultra was still St. Martin’s back then: a technical Catholic school for boys. In fact, the street intersecting Capt. Henry Javier, the one that slopes downward to the OG Aysee is still called “St. Martin.”
It was at St. Martin’s where a priest discovered dad’s writing prowess and asked him to join the school paper and he was a regular contributor all throughout his stay there. Sadly, he stopped writing in college. I stopped running then too. Word of the day: dilettante. Like father like son. But we enjoyed it very much the short time we did what we did.
The real measure of youth is how pumped you can get even to a song like Justin Bieber’s “Baby”. Pota. Dad’s angst-filled teenhood had Jefferson Airplane. I had Bieber. But I took what I can get.
I get that running, especially an event like long-distance running can be dull. You literally do one thing. By your 3rd lap, you would’ve memorized every detail in your route. But that’s exactly what I enjoyed about it. Those laps were the blank space for my scattered thoughts – and I had a lot of those in high school. What college will I get into? Run. What good food can I actually afford to eat after this? Run. Does she like me? (Of course not) Run. It was a comprehensive escape for me.
That was the best summer of my life. I actually decided things for myself. At 16 that was a milestone. Which friends to hang out with, how serious I was going to take the entrance exams (very, dad saw me crying over the math portion), that I was now going to move on from that bitch (again to think that that was a choice at 16 was a goddam feat). And one thing I noticed from then on, every time I decided for myself, and I mean really decide and commit to shit, life was generally better and I first learned that over there before forgetting that lesson again and again later on in life.
You know the best part about Ultra? That scenic view when you get to the top of the bleachers. I would always see the golden arches along Katip. I took it as a sign. That’s where I was headed. There wasn’t much room for daydreaming, though. Once you get to the top, you march back down for another lap. That’s what made each trip special. You had to earn it. And boy did I.
I get Fitzgerald now. All his protagonists chasing their childhood, their innocence. And they fail badly. Because really no one ever wins that game.
And I think men have it worse than women. It has something to do with ego I think. A young man is either cocky or lost. If they’re lost, they’re dreaming of redeeming themselves in grandiose fashion. Dad was miserable when mom passed. He shaved off that thick, majestic mustache and lost weight.
He found peace, though. And all the gods he could pray to. But peace is what you settle for when you can no longer have youth.
And now I can’t stand summer. Dad died in the summer. I suppose all the friends that flocked to his wake made things sunny for a while. But afterwards, well, my friend, you do not mourn under the sun. The prickly heat is no climate for pensive thought. And they’ll see how ugly your face is when you cry.
I can’t run anymore. Health issues. The thoughts stay with me this time around. The sky? They’re building another condo right across mine, blocking most of the horizon.
If I go back up those bleachers in Ultra, I wonder if I’ll still be able to see the golden arches. I once saw kids running there again. I couldn’t believe it. That there’s a generation that comes after us. I was once sure the world stopped producing kids after ’93. That we were gonna be young forever. The only young ones. But who are these intruders and how dare they make me feel old?
But we took it from dad too, didn’t we? Our generation. Ultra was once St. Martin’s. I ran where he wrote. That priest who believed in him is dead now (I suppose). His first paper, that entry into the world of letters is gone now too. The changing of the guard is supposed to be a hackneyed abstract concept not a deeply personal and unfair imposition.
It’s 2010 and I’m running on the oval. “I’m the fastest kid around here,” I think, as those team A tracksters lap me for the third time. It’s gonna stay this good, right? It has to.
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*A bit of history for those interested. St. Martin’s became the University of Life later on. Ultra is actually an acronym for the University of Life Theater and Recreational Arena. It would later on be named the Philsports Complex and is run by the Philippine Sports Commission where I myself worked for several years. My return to Ultra came in early 2020 when were assigned there as the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex office of the PSC in P. Ocampo was too full. Sadly, my beloved asylum in the Ultra satellite office was short-lived as the pandemic kicked in. But I was thankful that I got to immerse myself in that haven one last time.
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