Reader of paths

THE thing that first struck me about Buboy was his feet.

They resembled no pair I knew. If they were not found at the base of his person, I could mistake them for a gnarly giant root of ginger freshly dug up, with clods of earth still clinging to them.

Those feet went everywhere with Buboy. They took us up and down paths not known to habal-habal (upland motorcycle), truck or cart. They blended where the desiccated soil lay like dust balls. Their toughness just sloughed off the slimy water pooling in road furrows, as well as the evening chill or dawn fog we wrapped ourselves against with towels and malong (blanket).

Where was Buboy while his feet took us everywhere? The man was even more silent than his feet, if that were possible. He ate with the group but quickly. I never heard him venture a story, a joke, an opinion in a season when even the remotest hole in the southern ranges echoed with the crawling of politicians.

Given the laconic nature of Buboy and his feet, his companions tried to compensate.

Of the stories I heard, I remember this best: no one can see the paths hereabouts better than Buboy.

To a city dweller like me, mountain paths have been an education. A trail that goes steeply up reminds me I don’t need all the stuff I carry around my gut. On the other hand, a footpath etched against eroded slopes, with no bush or root to hold on to, all loose soil and heights, makes me appreciate all the gravity I can command when I hunch, squat and slide down, after warning my companions to get out of the way.

But I’ve usually done my crossing of paths in daylight, which, I gather among my companions, is something anyone with legs is at least expected to do. Crossing by day kilometers of brush and slopes, enough to connect one mohon (boundary marker) to another, is not a matter of skill, only a measure of how well you can take your burden, bringing enough water and provisions to prevent dehydration and fainting.

Walking at night is another thing.

The city slicker’s faith in flashlights is misplaced as an anemic, quivering beam does not diminish but only heightens the anomie of walking in the dark. That insipid pool of yellow can make a root seem to wriggle across the path. Walking is an act of balancing what is within you with what is out there. A battery-illuminated path only singles you out, small, stunned and watched by the night breathing around you.

Buboy and our companions had no such handicap. On the first night, a perfect orb swung in the night sky. I thought this was what gave the dan-ag (brightness) that kept us on the right path.

But they explained that even in the moonless dark, a path remains bright. The passage of many feet cracks a line that runs in the dark. You see that line with each tamak (step). Better than the eye, the feet can read, from flattened grass, broken branches, absence of rocks, roughness worn down, that this is a path people have made, or only animals know, and a few others keep secret.

In the prosaic ritual of cleaning up after breakfast, stories of how some feet are more gifted than others in reading the liquid dark lie cold and inert like last night’s campfire.

But when we all take up our burdens and follow the lead taken by Buboy’s feet, I remember why the need to keep in touch can overwhelm distance, the elements, even the absence of light.

I wish I had stayed to listen to the unspoken, never-before-heard tales of Buboy’s feet, if they could speak.

mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ mayettetabada.blogspot.com/ 0197-3226131


* Published in Sun.Star Cebu’s Apr. 8, 2007 issue

Gentle sedition

WOULD it save the planet if we all went back to walking? I will always associate the unlamented Presidential Proclamation 1017 with the TV image of men beating people that had just been walking on the streets.

How could anyone save the most paranoid see walking as sowing the seeds of rebellion?

Walking is the most gentle of preoccupations open to humans. In 10 years of serious walking, I have never run over a dog. I have not sent a vendor’s boiled peanuts crashing to the sidewalk. I don’t recall offending anyone because I always cooled off under the nearest shade before joining human company.

Non-violence, coexistence, deference. Is there any act more pacific?

Those who know me may argue that I was meant to rely on my feet (and public transport, when necessary) because I can hardly follow road directions, refuse to tinker with anything mechanical, and cannot afford anything that has a wheel or more.

While true, these causes have led to something that’s less of an accident than a fire stoked every time I put on socks and shoes.

Low-tech purists who swear by sandals and bare feet may look down on my reliance on moisture absorption and good traction. But pragmatism should be what is cheaper in the long haul. I will scare off clients by showing up in sandals that bare my toes, dead as clichés from being stepped on countless times in crowds and jeepneys.

Walking does require clothes that, contrary to today’s trends, are not really planned the night before but thrown over the body intent about walking in comfort. So, shoes and socks that hug and accept you, bunions and all. Anything in cotton as it is light and quick to dry.

Nudity, however, is not yet in fashion. It may mean zero weight, but the gas pains can cramp your stride.

Every walker dreams of walking without any burden. Is that possible in our world, where property is as important for establishing identity as a laminated social security I.D.?

As I walk daily, in between classes and appointments, I always tote along books, water and stuff. This preoccupies my hands, which can be attacked by a diminished sense of value since walking basically involves the lower extremities and a head full of digressions.

Or carry a placard or wave a fist, if you please. However, “push to eject” buttons or shirts shrieking “Oust the Pretender” do tend to attract pesky proclamations or paranoia.

From my experience, paranoid canines pose greater risk to walkers than the human variety. In certain streets of our village, the dogs always whip themselves to a frenzy whenever my husband and I walk by after dinner.

Walking promotes tolerance. If I were leashed all day, I would also howl to make sure the rest of the street knows life was not just passing me by.

“This is so horrible,” I would bay. “She’s wearing again the same shoes.”

“You don’t say,” barfed the boxer three houses up. “You should endure watching her behind.”

It must be why I love cats. If you come across one while walking, it will sniff the air to make sure you are not dinner material and then slip away. Impenetrable creatures that keep their opinions to themselves.

I love best that walking, in the gentlest of irony, encourages solitude and communion. Walking at dusk in Banilad, I lug books and paper while other hikers tuck under their arms tools and saws with their serrations sheathed in improvised orange plastic tubes, and government workers swing along tiny bags holding empty lunch kits.

I close most days walking with a person who makes the same turn, left or right, as I do. In a world of subverted lives, it is no small certainty to have someone I know like the bump on the first joint of my right toe.

(mayette.tabada@gmail.com or 09173226131)