Because Sundays are for remembering

SEAHORSE

I have always wanted a seahorse. When I was a child, that is.

I grew up in my Lola's house on Antonio Luna street in Project 4, a suburb of Quezon City, but not the posh gated kind. We had easy access to the supermarket because of our prime location. You just go outside, walk around 100 steps or so, maybe 200 or 300 for my smaller seven, eight, or nine-year-old feet. When you reach the intersection of A. Luna and F. Castillo street, you turn left. Cristy's bakery is the unmistakable landmark to your left, as this corner is always full of people buying pandesal for 10 centavos each every morning. To my right is the three-storey building of the Velasquez family, and they have a convenience store on the ground floor where I buy my 25-centavo red gulaman drink fix. 

Where I lived, you won't get lost if you pay attention to these unmoving details. I never got lost. 

F. Castillo is a small two-way thoroughfare that meets up to the wider Aurora Boulevard up ahead. And on their left corner intersection, there stood Queen's Supermarket. It's the only supermarket around the area so people flock to it often. My Lola and I once saw the actress Boots Anson-Roa shop there, and my dear granny was fangirling a lot. Of course, Ms. Roa was very kind and accommodating, and smiled and chatted diplomatically with my Lola. Who would have thought that, by the time I turned 23 years old, Ms. Boots would become one of my future bosses, the one who would always remember our good times at the Premiere Productions office of the '90s even after years since it has closed down. I so love her dearly for not forgetting me, as I certainly won't forget her, too.

But as a child, grocery shopping was not the highlight of my supermarket trips. It's the chance to visit the small pet shop nook on one side of the facility. They had aquarium tanks of varying shapes, but mostly large ones that house many, many, many types of fishes. My Lola always bought those bright orange fat goldfish types from time to time, to put in her own aquarium. There were so many types of these small fishes, guppies, whatever they're called, I can't recall now. But it's not the fishes I wanted. It's the seahorse.

There were a few seahorses there in the tank, swimming on their own paths to avoid bumping into the fishes. They had this kind of stance, like they're standing majestically, but not really, since how can you stand when you're on water and you have no feet? But they appeared that way. They looked more like characters in an anthropomorphic way, unlike the fishes which you could always tell that they're, well, animals. But the seahorse is different. It looked like it was ready to converse with you, to come to life and talk like an animated being, like what I watch on TV in those cartoon shows every Saturday morning. 

To me, the seahorse looked like it had something important to say. When you're staring at it inside the aquarium, it looks like it's staring back. It's as if we're both waiting for who will speak up first. We stand there, we stare, and we wait. I've always wondered what it would say, what it would ask me, if it started speaking. I know I have my own ready questions, but I felt that you can't ask a seahorse the mundane questions you'd ask a goldfish, like how do you breathe, or how do you maintain your balance underwater, and stuff like that. I felt that you could converse deeply with a seahorse since I believed it could tell you insights into what life is like on water or something like that. I would have loved to have one at home, to stare at it endlessly while it swims and stares back, to feed it, and to watch it eat. It's a simple thought and a simple wish for times that were much simpler, too. A bit profound perhaps, but still simple in its profundity. 

I can't remember if I was able to persuade my Lola to buy me a seahorse. I don't think she wanted a non-fish entity in her big aquarium at home. Or did we actually try, only for it to perish earlier than the fishes? Details elude me now. But what stuck is the memory of wanting a seahorse, of staring at a seahorse, of seeing a seahorse stare back. What a strange childhood fascination. But Sundays are for remembering, and I remember this strange fascination today. That seahorse. //