Sipping Coffee

Sipping Coffee
Boom Enriquez

Café Mocha. Medium-Sized. It’s the perfect drink. As I rest on a couch in one of the coffee shops along Katipunan Avenue, I observe the movements of people going in and out. Coming from different walks of life and ages, they come in, stay for an hour or two, and then go. I, for one, appreciate this kind of lifestyle. I like to listen to the sounds of chatter of peoples, the smell of brewed coffee and the feel of urban life. It suites me and the others who’d rather sit to quiet down than go out for drinks and dance.

The coffee shop experience is assimilated in the modern Filipino. Ray Oldenburg’s theory of the ‘third place’ is aptly observed in the habit. Aside from the home and work, there is a need to have that ‘third place’ for one to let go of his apprehensions and just relax. The café phenomenon has embraced that. In Katipunan alone, there are more than ten cafés for people to stay, reflect and be with themselves.

I just finished running a workshop to a group of students who were preparing for their organization for the coming year. I was there to facilitate their plans and projects. They were impressive; they actually had good goals for their group. They were excited for the year. They realized that they could actually affect change. I, too, was in a good mood. I ended it with the line, “We live in extraordinary times; thus, there’s no reason for us not to be extraordinary”.

I would like to believe in that. With the advancements in technology, breakthroughs in modernity, unlimited opportunities for development, and the upcoming national elections, I think we will have better lives in the next few years.

By the end of June, two of my good friends are leaving the Philippines and work abroad. Whenever that crosses my mind, I feel a certain mix of happiness, relief and envy. They deserve better lives, better careers, in spite of everything that they will be leaving. As for myself, I continue to prepare for that time to when I need to choose that road.

Harris will be leaving for Kuwait by the first week of that month. He will be bringing with him his creativity and gift for writing. When we talk, we talk about everything: from the gossips from his work, his actual work, to religion, philosophy and literature. Once we were having coffee, people were looking at us as we fought over Nietzsche, Marx and Kant until the wee hours of the night.

Noel will be leaving next. In every two weeks, he will be on transnational flights as he will be teaching piano and music lessons in Monaco and Qatar. I will miss his pastas and sauces. He taught me the differences in the tastes of wine and their origins, as he was a connoisseur. His playing of the piano and operatic voice were music to my ears. His passion for life exudes in his aura.

Thinking about their leaving makes me teary-eyed. But by this time, I should have gotten used to this. In the last 5 years or so, family and friends have left. I have a tito and tita in Hong Kong, a pinsan in Indonesia, a couple of kumpares and kumares in Singapore, some kapitbahays in Tel Aviv and Dubai, katrabahos in Japan and US, and some former kaklases and estudyantes in London and Canada. And every time one leaves, gloominess fills me up. There’s no difference with how I feel now.

My kid brother is now in a long-distance relationship. His girlfriend needed to go abroad for two years so that she can have a better chance at saving for her family. My girlfriend has a pending application to work in Australia. Once the country opens for recruitment again, anytime, she will be going there.

Is this the call of being extraordinary? To decide to uproot oneself and leave home? To sacrifice all the work and relationships that were developed and just make new ones?

It seems that I have misunderstood what extraordinary means. Being extraordinary today may mean joining the other eleven million Filipinos struggling in other countries, looking for and re-determining their identities in lands that never will be their own. Being extraordinary then is to hope that after living most of their adult life outside the country, they will be coming back to a life they used to hope that they have.

It takes a lot of courage and necessity to do join the Diaspora and this is an extraordinary decision. But come to think of it, with the numbers of working abroad rise steadily every year, it may just become as ordinary as the decision to go to college.

I also think about going. Who wouldn’t? With salaries three times as much as what I am having here, who wouldn’t want to have that? I plan to get married in a few years. The thought gives me the discomfort. How will I pay for the wedding? How will I pay for the rent and bills? How will I send my future children to school? How will I raise a family with my meager salary, which it can’t even support myself now?

But I do have the best job in the world. I work with young minds, eager to learn, with dreams bigger that my dreams, and hopes up as high as the skies. I feed off from their energies. I get a kick out of their aspirations in life. I keep telling them that success here is possible, that their goals are plausible.

I remember my pact to myself back in high school that I won’t leave the country. With clear vindication, I promised myself to slug it out here for the rest of my life.

Now that I am older, I think twice if ever I would not be breaking that vow. I feel that someday, I will be joining Noel and Harris and the others who are abroad, trying to fit in a different society, missing their own homes and families, at the expense of having a sustainable life. It’s as if I have a clock that is ticking until the alarm rings for me to wake up and go with them.

That truly saddens me.

Ironically, my work requires me to not give up and continue hoping. I need to inspire and motivate the young to stay, to fight it out here, and to eventually lead the country. Does this vulnerability make me unfit as a mentor and adviser? I hope not. I hope that it will make me more secure with my decision to stay on, continue to do what I do. I hope that somehow, all these questions that linger about stability will be answered.

I’m done with my coffee. It was good, as usual. I thank the barista for it. I decide to go home and get some sleep. For tomorrow, I will be running another workshop, guiding another group in their plans, forming young minds, telling them to be extraordinary in these extraordinary times.