At the Corner of Serrano and 5th Avenue, Quezon City

Estee phoned me an hour ago to inform me that my pick-up for the office off-site would be at the corner of Serrano Street and 5th Avenue, Quezon City, rather than at the originally-designated EDSA Shrine. I am already here with my overnight bag, waiting for the bus that has the rest of my co-workers to stop by. They are still on EDSA/Makati, and so I have lots of time to write in my leather notebook.

There are several hole-in-the-wall canteens here, across a military facility, but I choose to sit under a jeepney stoop where I can observe vehicles and other passersby. Inside the taxi on the way the driver has the radio tuned to a news station: there is so much political havoc elsewhere, none of it evident in this part of the city. The few people who sit to rest briefly near me are all friendly--a street cleaner, a student, and a tofu vendor. Everyone else, whether in vehicles or on foot, pays me no mind despite the ethnic jewelry that I chose to wear over the next two days.

I am suddenly overcome with metaphysical angst, and I realize that it is within my power to alter the course of my future. Now. As in every moment that demands deep reflection.

There is the option to pick up my bag and go home and inform my co-workers that I am unable to join them--an act that would forever remain a mystery to them, and a mystery that I will never bother to explain. Yet, the decision to remain conventional and predictable prevails.

I am looking forward to being in a venue in Antipolo that I have never been to before and observe the syllabus and methods of a new, team-building facilitator. I sincerely hope that his exercises will not be comprised of nursery rhymes, action songs, dancing, tossing plastic balls, twirling plastic hula hoops, wrapping ourselves with yarn, building paper towers, holding fashion competitions using old newspapers, and the like--all of that went out in 1960. They are such a far cry from my own workshops.

I hope I learn something new. Otherwise I might just as well go home.

(Accompanying Album is on my Google+ page, but is visible only to my Followers.)