PARADOXICAL

Finally, Sunlight (Post-Habagat Debriefing)

I

Nothing will ever make you appreciate the sun more than after being soaked for weeks and weeks like some piece of pork in a soy marinade.

As I write this while on leave on September 7, I take a solemn moment to appreciate the sun, and 'worship' it like some pagan tribesman. No, really, it's for my daily dose of natural vitamin D. As I struggle with staring at the glare for one second, I am reminded of my many sins against it: the times I complained too much about how unbearable its heat, how blinding its light, how it makes you short of breath while walking and waiting out in the street in the height of summer, and so on.

In moments of human weakness like that, I try to recall what a Practical Arts teacher (Mr. Fernandez) back in high school told us, his class, when we complained aloud how "everything was wet and muddy" at the onset of the rainy season. "But weren't you complaining about how everything was hot and dry just a few days ago?" "Make up your mind!" was the implication. We just laughed at him, or on our own folly, in response.

Lately, as we all endured the worryingly long rains punctuated by torrents that seemed to tear through the roof and felt like bullets falling on high, I tried to balance my thoughts as is my nature. I tried hard to think of both the pros and cons, so as not to fall into the negativity of grumbling, as is my other natural proclivity.

Cons

In a waterlogged world such as we've had, I noticed how old forgotten but familiar problems crop up: Matchsticks that won't light. A stove that won't spark on its own like it used to. Wooden door jambs swelling, making the door hard or impossible to close. Plywoods curling. Clothes getting damp and moldering. (Plain old vinegar is our most efficacious antiseptic friend and fabric conditioner.) Clothes impossible to dry without a dryer. No matter if you keep a dozen carzoncillos, you will surely run out of them in the long run. The unwelcome smell of rot from the mold and mildew in the rooms. Roofs leaking.

Outside, plants get overwatered. Prized succulents turn into jelly. Some non-native food plants like papaya trees turn yellow, wilt, and die from excessive condensation and precipitation. Pathways turn either muddy or green with algae and moss, making them slippery and posing dangers most especially to running kids and frail seniors.

Wrigglers multiply exponentially. Flies and mosquitoes are a-swirlin--I just had to buy an electric swatter and think of myself as a famous tennis player. Athlete's foot threaten the feet. There's the risk, too, of leptospirosis after wading in the flood, plus the rise in incidence of other diseases such as fever, cough, and cold, dengue, diarrhea, etc.

Staying indoors and not being adequately exposed to the sunrays comes with vitamin D deficiency, rickets, growing fungus inside the ear, and having weather-induced depression, among other such risks. For hypertensives, being cooped up and sedentary for so long is also not good for the blood pressure.

Frozen foods are harder than usual to thaw as they turn Siberian permafrost-hard. Umbrellas misplaced, forgotten, lost. Taking a bath becoming an unwelcome chore.

There's also the more serious side effects of work and business stoppage. Business losses. Zero income for those depending on jobs that are paid arawan (by the day), and we know what this means: no food on the table. In local parlance, the times are referred to as panao'y gawat (meaning hard times). The police chief says petty thievery is on the rise, that even kalderos (iron pots) with leftover rice are stolen.

And of course there's flooding. Depending on the severity, it runs the gamut, from minor inconvenience to a life-and-death scenario requiring decisions from authorities, like pre-emptive and forced evacuations and entire rescue boat operations.

As we nursed our little sufferings, we had to deal with certain incidents, both here and abroad, that were truly staggering and requiring psychological first aid: a glacial collapse that wiped out entire villges, an SUV falling into a river as a span of bridge collapsed (the second bridge in a row to have the same misfortune), with five of its passengers going missing, a promising young boy being swallowed up in a hole on a sidewalk while navigating the flood, etc. (We in Pangasinan were stunned to know that floodwaters from Tarlac could reach up to Dagupan!)

With the serious flooding, people were, of course, reminded of the recent corruption issues over flood control projects that blew in our face in a big way lately. And about how we abuse the word 'resilience.' And how we should change our strategies, making it more comprehensive, "from mountain to seashore" approach, as renowned urban planner Jun Palafox points out. "Flooding doesn't respect political boundaries," another commentator adds.

Not to be dismissive of these things, as this part deserves a separate discussion, we must also be mindful of whether the torrential rains are normal or not. According to disaster mitigation expert Mahar Lagmay, the habagat (monsoon rains) this August of 2026 are frighteningly way above-normal, almost 300% higher in certain areas at the most. And this seems to have happened not just here but in other countries we regard as far more advanced and equipped in disaster resilience (Japan, China, etc.).

If this is truly unprecedented in history, then we are indeed living in an era of climate change. But if it's not, if it happens with regularity in a cyclical manner, then it should have long been a part of our response. But these issues are for another day because they deserve urgent attention.

What I just wanted to say here is far less ambitious: that this supposed 'bed weather' brings with it a thousand rather creative aggravations.

It appears that living in a swamp or bog is not an ideal place to be. To misquote Emily Dickinson, it is like "being a frog telling your name the whole day to an admiring bog."

***

Pros

But all is not lost. As we say goodbye to sweltering temperatures, unwanted sweating is gone. We smell better. (Though it can be argued that sweating it out with regularity is far more healthy.) We also get considerable savings on the usage of lighta, aircon, andelectric fans. It also means finally getting to use those 'winter' clothes from abroad or wagwagan and surplus shop, and enjoy wearing our new outfit of the day (OOTD).

The repeated cancellations of work mean resting from the tremendous amount of work, except for the poor unfortunate souls (the "Team However" of LGU frontliners who always belong to Executive Order exemptions and qualifiers). It means catching up on sleep, picking up long-discarded hobbies once again, and the luxury of listening to various kinds of insects whistling and frogs croaking at night.

A new set of species -- assorted insects, mushrooms, fungi, seedlings -- turn up and take over the landscape. If it's not destructive, water, after all, means life.

The nonstop rains are a great excuse to do many other things, like cooking all sorts of hot soups and brothy dishes and reminiscing on unforgettably delicious though humble dishes now long gone.

Agriculturally speaking, seeds begin to sprout like on cue. Forgotten seedlings rise at the speed of light, raring to be bear fruit and be picked. As our LDRRM Officer pointed out, the water table is refilled. Massive irrigation of farmlands can be had for free!

Moreover, if we are smart and able, we can harvest unlimited rainwater While at it, for later use, maybe during the reported "super El Niño." If we could find a way of shipping the excessive moisture of parched farmlands in the rest of the country, what a wonderful thing it would be.

Other people's misfortune also prompts the kindhearted-hearted ones to reach out without being told, both leaders and ordinary people who take the initiative to help out in whatever way they can, restoring whatever faith you have left in humanity.

***

At this point, I am not sure which I prefer, but I guess life always balances things out. Our role is to ride out this season of slush till the elusive sun appears again, or we might as well enjoy it while it lasts. (Except, of course, when our whole domicile is flooded, which is an entirely different conversation.)

II

But this rainy season is quite unusual for a couple of other things. Except for gale-force storms, it made us experience all kinds of rain, from the faintest pitter-patter to the torrential. Then in one particular interregnum, there was this intermission number of having rain and sunshine at the same time! When the weather can't make up its mind, you get confused as well.

Puzzling

I am reminded of an old hit song by Rivermaya, "Umaaraw, Umuulan." The song wasn't really about the sun shining brightly and rain falling, but about life being "sadyang ganyan" (it is what it is). Like one psychologist I talked to said, "Life has its ups and downs, negatives and positives." It was a very simple observation, but a major eye-opener for me: I received it at a time when I couldn't help but dwell on the unacceptable negatives in my life, yet I was also being blind to the many positives I had.

Poetically speaking, the inclement weather teaches us that "into each life, some rain must fall," to recall an old English class in high school discussing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Not all days will be bright and beautiful. One time you are down, nursing pain both physical and metaphysical for no apparent reason.

But the sun shining and the rain falling at the same time is some seriously confusing phenomenon indeed when philosophically interpreted this way. Life's plus and minus, ups and downs, occurring at the same time, instead of one after another is just disorienting. We can only take change one at a time.

I suddenly remember that in the Pangasinan language, there is reportedly specific terms for this strange phenomenon. According to the book "Pinabln Dalin," it is called 'dalapa,' "that rare weather phenomenon in which it rains while the sun is shining." Similarly, 'uran-bakes' or 'ura'y bakes' (literally, 'ulan ng unggoy' or monkey rain) is a little rain that suddenly comes then suddenly stops, while the sun is shining.

According to an oldtimer, old folks in our town believed that an 'engkanto' o elemental spirit (called 'kaibaan' locally) is having a childbirth whenever this happens. When everything is wet around me while the sun is shining brightly, I too would feel like a total weirdo, like some wet dried fish, or 'daing' in drenched in water.

At this point, I suddenly recall the time in my boyhood when I was told to dry out corn seeds in the sun but had to struggle saving it from a sudden and surprisingly heavy downpour. It was a day of disaster. We ended up having sub-par corn seeds because, the next day, they were infested with aflatoxin-producing molds, a toxin that accumulates in the body, according to research. The harvest couldn't be sold as animal feed.

I guess, into each life, some rain must fall indeed--you win some, you lose some, oftentimes one after the other, but sometimes at the same time. We have to be resilient like the bamboo, as the cliche goes. To learn to bend while the blanket is small, as the local idiom goes. To go with the flow, to roll with the punches.

But as others have argued against such resilience mentality, there are situations in life where we abuse the concept of resiliency. We also must learn to fight back by outwitting the harm posed by water, by making it work for us instead of monkeying around us. We can't just bend and bend and accept things as they are when we can do something about it. I don't know what to say as of the moment, so this musing ends with me being puzzled--I just can't make up my mind, with something to think about for later while sunning myself out.

(Note: Not written with AI; 0% AI slop)

posted by Resty Odon  # 3:11 PM