Walking Sampaloc: My Idle Curiosity

One Step At A Time

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder. - E.B. White

I love the seasons.

Each and every one.

But fall, with the warm embrace of an amber sky and the inviting smell of apples and spice, is my favorite. It is, I think, the most romantic and heartwarming of the seasons. Just don’t mention that to winter, spring or summer.

It's the time of the year when I love going outside to garden and - surprise! - taking daily walks in the neighborhood.

So today on this happy, bright day, I want to share with you some of my walking ventures.

Starting way back when I walked to my elementary school.

I remember heading out eagerly each day.

Bag, check. Mongol pencil no. 2, check. Baon to buy snack, check. 

In Sampaloc where I grew up in, going to places was no problem. Everywhere was walking distance.

I'd carefully cross Tuazon street where a jeepney, blaring loud music, rattled past me. I'd always thought how interesting it would be to paint its front with many decorating stripes of color. Surely, I'd doodle on the hoods and fenders, too. And where could I get one of those borloloy accessories and postcard of the saints that drivers would post on the windshield above their head?

Of course, I'd get distracted by the chinaman who was just opening his sari-sari stall. Variety stores were strewn left and right along Fountain street, but it was this particular spot where I always lingered. Guess why? I'd like to have a glimpse of Aling Sisang. Besides her everyday black silk kimono attire, she had that club foot that had always mystified me. 

I heard stories that foot binding was practiced among the Chinese for rich girls. That was mainly because the wealthy had servants to serve them since they couldn't walk. Poor girls needed normal feet in order to work. Hah!

The church that dead-ended on an estero, a channel used as a drainage canal in Sampaloc, was only two streets away.  But I wasn't going that way to the bridge where I'd usually try my luck crossing without ever falling into one of its broken decking.

I'd continued on to the sidewalk toward the wet market. The pavement had been cracked by too many weary footsteps. There was an empty beer can on the ground. I nudged it into the narrow canal that lined the street. 

Without ever going out on the street where the jeepneys were plying their business, I'd take a short cut and cross over to Leby's house and walk through the narrow eskinita alleyway. A dog ran out from Aling Deling's house and barked as I paused. Where was she? Usually she would be out there, waging war upon the ever-encroaching weeds in her cadena-de-amor bush.

A couple of side streets across was Geronimo. The ground was rough, muddy in some places. 

It was like a festival, already crowded with Mang Carlos selling iced gulaman jello. He was swatting at the flies swirling around him. Vendors littered the sidewalk with carts of peeled green mangoes doused in stinky bagoong. I passed by a bakery, the only storefront with its lights on, and caught the scent of pandesal.

Everything appeared at once distant and close. I was enticed to reach out and grab a bag of Mang Simon's crunchy corn nuts, but no. Not until after school was over.

Ingat! Beware of the turbanned Indian vendor! I jumped a little and hastily but carefully crossed to the other side as bicycles and errant automobiles sometimes went both ways on this side street.  We were told that inside the bundle he carried on a stick were the children he had snagged and was selling.

Along the way were fences strung up with colorful washing to dry. It seemed that everyday was washday in my neighborhood.

An elderly couple were feeding a cat in the alleyway. Was it a stray? 'Maryosep, a black cat. I remembered. I spat a couple of times on the ground in a subconscious effort to ward off the bad luck it might bring me. 

The downstairs of some buildings were shops and people lived above. I could see old women leaning on their elbows on the balconies watching everything below. They looked at that distance like hens in a chicken coop with their bright red and orange camisas. Others were gossiping. I'd come to realize that in a small neighborhood, the most efficient way to hear the news was to listen to gossip. I'd wondered what there was to talk about this early in the morning.

I walked slowly along. It was still the same narrow road I had always known. 

A nothing place.

Yet to me, the scenario was a delight on the way I'd known everyday.

I was enjoying every step, eager to discover anything new in the backdrop of daily life or just to re-discover the familiar. With idle curiosity, I was experiencing each moment as if it were the first sensation of its kind ever. 

I'd come to love this street in both its shabbiness and its occasional glory.

A wonder-filled world full of infinite causes.

On the path that I had made by walking.