Ryan’s Stories

The trails of Binmaley’s fishponds are the most transitory of landscapes. Every so often, owners feel a need to deepen the ponds and they dump the black, muddy mass over the trails and pathways, changing its shape, width and vegetation growth. When I was 8, I was walking among cogon taller than I was, its sharp edges, nipping my bare arms and legs as I passed. At 14, on a summer so hot that the pond waters were as clear as drinking water, only hardy thistle-like shrubs grew; even its flowers were brown, seemingly dessicated and I remember my mother gathering a few, spraying them with gold paint and putting them in a vase. There are pictures taken over the years of this neighbor’s house or a group of children (now grown and married) posing on the street and there is a huge paper tree there or a clump of malunggay at the foreground whose leaves are free for the taking on days when one is cooking beans. The pictures tell of a landscape as constantly changing as the lives of the people in the community.

I often take this trail just across our house as a shortcut to the basketball court and I try to remember, try really hard, but the only picture I see is what’s in front of me…