A life on the beach

Three months ago, this writer had to take one foot out of the city and find residence in a nearby province for family medical reasons (nothing to do with the pandemic). We sought a place with plenty of sunshine and fresh air, and if possible, a beach. It needed to be no more than three hours away from Metro Manila, as I still had to make weekly drives there for work then. The choices were Bataan, Zambales and Pangasinan further north, and Batangas, Laguna or Cavite in the south. Luckily, we found a perfect place, and slowly started draining the city and its stresses out of us. It remains within arm’s reach of what people consider civilization, but detached enough that COVID-19 is a footnote, not the headline. Needless to say, even with stable WiFi, it was still a major adjustment.

The main difference in being in this kind of location is accessibility to “modern” creature comforts which, ultimately, are dispensable. The town proper is five kilometers away. The next relatively big town is a 30-minute drive. You have to plan most trips to the mall, gym, the hardware store, certain banks, fastfood restaurants (no Jollibee or McDonald’s for 20 kilometers), even coffee shops and other places in neighboring towns. All of these are a mere hop, skip and jump away in big cities.

But SBMA is only an hour’s drive from our location, and a much more exciting adventure than the dreary, soul-sucking commute from Quezon City to Makati. Oftentimes, you have to shop in bulk. But the good thing is those are the only times you wear a mask. Also, when you get home, the waves are your front yard, and that comes with loads of benefits.

If I may make a bold comparison, this is what some of our Olympians went through when they couldn’t (or didn’t) return to the Philippines. It wasn’t what they were used to. They trained in the environment they were in, prepared food from what was found there, and focused. They kept in touch with family and friends remotely, and found strength in that kind of support. The other side of the coin is that, deprived of many distractions, they also had too much time to think, worry and doubt. Now I understand the unsettling blend of separation anxiety, fear and detachment they experienced. I’ve spent my entire life in urban settings, save for weekend trips to Pangasinan with my grandparents when I was a child. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, either. And even when I was still making weekly trips to Metro Manila, I had to accept that this was my address now. I had to settle in. It was unnerving. Branded franchise establishments are scarce, save for that American convenience store and competing Chooks-To-Go and Andok’s roast chicken outlets.

The best thing you can do is to treat each day not as monotony, but as training. You have more time to reflect, plan, prepare, coordinate. Taking a long run or walk every morning isn’t redundancy; it’s strengthening. Open water swimming every day isn’t boring; it’s testing limits. And getting fish fresh from the nets every morning changes how you perceive food and your diet. Some children believe that what they eat comes from the grocery. Most have never even seen a live fish pulled from the water, or a vegetable yanked from the earth. Like what our Olympians went through, I don’t know what I’m preparing for. I know they felt that, too.

It’s hard to really call it quarantine when you face the expanse and abundance of the West Philippine Sea. I jog past dozens of fishing boats selling their catch in the early mornings. Every sunset is like a master class in creation, but done by the ultimate Master. And – oh, yes – I haven’t worn shoes in a month, or long pants for two. The only annoyance is the intermittent intrusion of Chinese broadcasts on the radio.

We are all, in one way or another, in a different world. No matter how pleasant or easy a new place may seem, there are always adjustments, challenges. Whether or not you really spend time with your toes in the sand, I wish we could all feel like we’re living a life on the beach.