QUESTION. What do you do when you get stuck at a train station (I’m tempted to say “subway” to make it sound more posh, but nah, this is Manila, baby), hoping to get in on a train and to your destination, only to end up standing and waiting for an hour because there was just no room in the trains for you to squeeze in? (Typical MRT scenario, I know! :))

ANSWER. You look around, watch people, think, reflect (you know, entertain yourself so that you’ll forget about your growling stomach), you try your best to not start a fight with the girl shoving you to the left, and the other one pushing you to the right, and remain calm. And it probably won’t hurt to write a couple of notes down, yep, even while standing up. Mental notes, after all, don’t stay in the head most of the time. They fly away even before you get the chance to recall them, and then you forget them altogether.

I’m a fan of writing things down. And lists. And bullets. They give me an illusion that my life is in order, that I have specific goals to reach, making me feel a lot better (and less like a mess).

So tonight, that’s kind-of what I did. Me and my moleskine, that’s what we did. So if you happened to be in Boni Avenue station last night, and you saw someone doing a balancing act which involved a black leather-bound notebook and a cheap black pen, well, that was me alright.

It’s kind of weird to be in a reflective mode at a time like that. You see, I spend a minimum of 8 hours each day in my quiet corner in the office, my nose on my macbook, with a mug of hot coffee I sip in between — I’m comfortable, I’m sitting down, and yet my mind is never as restless. Now the one time I spend in a chaotic place like an MRT station, people shoving me left and right, my feet numb from all the standing — and I never felt more at peace.

Reading my scribbles, I find it funny that I mostly wrote about being still. To focus on the more important things when there’s too much to do. To look past the moment when in the verge of an emotional outburst. To not worry when things aren’t going the way they’re planned. To breathe and reboot when tired and weary. To trust when it seems like things aren’t enough. Such thoughts usually don’t come when you’re in a situation like that.

One hour after, I gave up and left the station. I never did get to where I was supposed to go that night. I was charged an additional 15 pesos for overstaying (and I was like, “wuuut??”), but it’s okay. I paid 15 pesos to get in, 15 pesos to get out. I had my moment with myself, and with God. All for the price of 30 pesos.