on the road

There's a certain comfort in being in a station wagon along the highway while rain batters the windshield at a million miles an hour.

There's a certain comfort in looking outside and seeing a view much better than my crappy camera could ever capture, as lightning cuts through the sky in its electric whiteness, faster than I could ever catch.

There's a certain comfort in looking out the window at 9 in the evening and seeing a hundred lights, a hundred lives, a hundred stories that we blink past every hour.

There's a certain comfort in the way your friends text you from Quezon City as you ride on the NLEX, as if they were sitting right beside you on a long, lonely ride.

There's a certain comfort in heading to your childhood province six hours away from where you live now, realizing you're living your childhood construction of "safe" - that is, buried in a blanket in a snug old car.

There's a certain comfort in waking up to something like this.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.