Today is May 18th, almost two months since the global pandemic has arrested all of us in our homes. I’ve been tossing and turning, wondering if I should post or not on this blog. The idea of carrying on as it used to be, posting beautiful photos of food and drinks and travel, seems inconsequential (and slightly obnoxious) these days. Why bother when we can’t go out anyways?
I remind myself why I started this site in the first place. My goal was to try and document, with a little bit of effort this time around, all my travel and food adventures. I used to feel embarrassed admitting that I like fancy (often pretentious) shit. I love eating in restaurants where I get to taste elaborate, fussy food and sit in well-designed spaces. It stimulates the senses, makes you feel alive. Same goes with travel. There’s no need to belabor why travel is nice. New places? Novelty? Exposure to new culture? Endless photographs? And let’s face it, it’s usually a damn vacation — a reminder that you are living your life.
We all miss it.
As we’re transitioning to this “new normal” we have right now, I may just continue posting as per usual, perhaps with more limerence of the abrupt changes we just had. Things have changed but I’m not sure how it would unfold exactly. Would we travel the same way we did back then, with careless abandon? Will we ever find a permanent fix for this damn virus or will we live forever with caution?
This reminds me of the isaw stand in front of our house. We used to buy isaw all the time here, now, as much as we want those gnarly little intestines, we’d think twice whether the virus is just waiting somewhere in these random food places. We’re also supposed to go home in Surigao the soonest to finally lay our father to rest, but air travel is still touch and go these days, much less any kind of normal travel. We all just have to wait some more and develop my least favorite virtue of all — patience.
For now, I’ll settle with documentation. To carry on means to hope that someday we’ll at least achieve some level of normalcy and, dare I say, complete freedom. In the meantime, I’m thankful for past travels and last year’s full throttle of food experiences. Maybe I’ll pursue a more Martha Stewart / Ina Garten / Teysi ng Tahanan approach to food these days. I’ll get my feet wet.
Joanne Aika 