October 12

    The date was October 12, a Monday afternoon. I had just finished writing my share for that day, hoping to spew something meaningful and worthwhile on a blank page before I threw out later on. When she had asked me if I was free, I hesitated. The comforts of my home, a nice long shower, a typical Filipino late lunch with fried rice and scrambled eggs, picking up on a book I had left the week before. 

    But the day outside was shining, and splendid. Autumn was in mid-bloom, the reds were like fire and the yellows like leafy stars hanging off the tree branches. I stepped out on the balcony of my three-storey townhouse and felt the breeze tenderly caress my cheek. I told her yes, I was free. And so we went for a walk, like we usually did. 

    From the freezing confines of an iced sidewalk in December to the open concrete paths heated by a July sun, our feet and shoes had tread similar roads. At times side by side, others our lonesome. Still it seemed the many streets and avenues we explored would always lead to same intersection: where we'd see each other across the trafficked space, wave, smile, say hello, and walk together again. 

    Perhaps I was getting tired, being stuck in this labyrinth. Yet any sign of fatigue or discontentment was ultimately dispelled by the sight of her smile, the familiar air that followed her everywhere she went. When I placed myself within the presence of these, I forgot and remembered all at the same time. I forgot how exhausted I was and only recalled the many spring afternoons, the sight of trees that sheltered us from the sky, and the sound of comfortable silence that filled gaps of our every conversation. I could only recall these things. 

    But when you've been deprived of something for so long, you begin to lose your memory. Familiar streets are suddenly just streets, songs are just songs, and the past is just the past. A strenuous process of remembering and forgetting, gaining and losing. 

    This is a story of October 12, a day when Autumn is alive and well, walking down fiery sidewalks and sitting on wooden benches. A day that passes by like any other day, but transports the lonesome and the longing to a place where their feelings and dreams change just as the seasons do. Naturally and without fault, accepting that where change happens, growth does too. 

    The time for coming home, and realizing just what home is: a person or a place? Or maybe it's a day? October 12 this year was on a Monday, and it was the day I walked with a girl. A person who held the keys to distant futures and a different past, one that may remain unchanged: but will rearrange just like shifting leaves on the path home. 

    An autumn afternoon, October 12.