Memory of trees

marlon and i did a lot of driving along c-5 last week, because edsa traffic was rendered thoroughly hellish by the heavy machinery (cranes and whatnot) pulling down all the billboards. we drove through the fort (does anyone ever really call it bonifacio global city?) a couple of weekday nights trying to catch serendra piazza and chef laudico’s open. which apparently never happens when you keep television network hours. anyway it was on one of these drives that i first saw what milenyo had done to mckinley road. (yes, it’s an extremely delayed reaction, but i rarely go to makati nowadays.)

i grew up in makati – went to preschool at ob montessori in dasmariñas village, and lived in the area for quite a chunk of my childhood. those acacia trees on mckinley line so many schoolday memories. walking to kindergarten under the shade of those huge, huge trees and entering by the back gate on mckinley. lying in the car on the drive home from school and looking up at a canopy of leaves so thick you could barely see the sky through them. seeing the high, graceful arch of acacias after an out-of-town trip (or even just after school) always told me that i was coming home – home, with all the wonderful and happy things that go with it.

and so, after realizing that abnormally too much sky was glaring through jagged, broken-off ends of branches, and reconciling that to all the huge exposed roots and torn-up chunks of pavement and garbage bags on the sides of the road – i wiped away tears for the mckinley's fallen acacias.