Fragments of summer

Reflections on my first year in a temperate country

I have been in Texas for over a year now, which means I have, for the first time in my life, lived through the changing of four seasons. When I arrived in May 2022, the weather was already hot; this year, the weather was still pleasant until about mid-June, but by then the temperatures rose steeply, uncomfortably, and with much more humidity than I expected.

In this experience I learned a number of things about myself: that I like dry heat much more than the cold, that the loveliness of spring, especially in the country, comes with certain perils in the form of snakes, insects, and allergies, that the interlude of autumn may be my favorite weather-wise, but it does make me wistful. So, despite the discomfort of the warm temperatures this summer — and the occasional misery of finding no reprieve from the 5 o’clock heat that our mini split struggles to beat — I have been reminding myself that in each season I’ve found something to dislike, and something to rejoice in. I can always look forward to those elusive “better” days when it is warmer or colder outside, or when the cicadas start or stop singing, or when the snakes crawl back into a deep sleep together with all the waiting seeds — but then I’d miss the point. I would forget that I am here, alive, the sun still somehow shining from the perfect distance for life to survive on this warming planet. Somehow, after many years, I have exited a long tunnel of existential crises and can bear to look at myself in the mirror again, knowing full well another tunnel may still lie ahead. Somehow things everywhere are getting worse, but somewhere they are also getting better. I delight and suffer in the impermanence with the hope I may always have the will to survive.

I permit myself to have seasons, as the trees do, though this has not always been the case. For a long time I punished myself for what I thought were fatal inconsistencies in action and character: failing to use up a notebook to the very last leaf, abandoning on a whim a perfectly functional routine in favor of another, thoughtlessly replacing items in the kitchen cupboard despite having a system for its organization, losing interest in something I thought was my life’s dream, feeling anxious when only yesterday I felt like I was on top of the world. Anecdotes on success often revolve around discipline, routine, or consistency, so every time I follow a new trail I feel like I am failing the best version of myself that I imagine is out there.

We’re only human is the cliché, and the truth. (As I get older, I discover that the clichés I scoffed at in the past have been onto something the entire time. There is complexity in certain simplicities that youth, in its inexperience, is yet to access.) Part of this lovely and terrible condition is growth, and in my case growth is a many-phased thing; I don’t assume this is the case for everyone. I like and unlike. I try and surrender. I feel and stop feeling. From each phase or curiosity has been something to learn: patience, knowledge of fabric, an eye for detail, certain financial habits, a modest collection of linguistic trivia. While I often wish I were more obsessive, equipped with the stamina to deep dive, I am, in truth, more excited about variety than depth. I enjoy seeing and making connections between the random skills and hobbies I’ve accumulated over the years. Brief fixations on foreign cinema, anime, k-pop, Latin rap, and French rock, have, I think, given me a repository of sounds and melodies that inform my writing. Tagalog and English are the only two languages I fluently speak, but I can identify multiple languages from the sound of them. Years of working in marketing, despite my resistance to many of the field’s values, have taught me useful lessons on writing succinctly, vividly, and impactfully. Binging sports entertainment like American Beastmaster and Olympic figure skating inspired me to work on my own physical capabilities which, in turn, greatly helped disperse the pent-up energy in my mind I had experienced as anxiety, allowing me a newfound mental clarity.

I have stepped into, in Bilbo’s words, the one Road — “its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary” — and have walked it the way I needed to. I have picked up what I needed, and returned what no longer served me. It is liberating to regard myself as a natural thing that behaves as many other natural things do: towards my purpose, in tune with the rhythms of the world I inhabit.

In the last few weeks, I noticed the project of this newsletter beginning to evolve, and there has been resistance on my part to allow it to become something else. Good marketing, after all, is rooted in having a consistent brand, so if I change again now, where does that leave me? Will you stay?

We are now on the brink of July, a month that, having grown up in the Philippines, I had always associated with rain and mosquito bites. In Texas, July is torrid. Here, ticks are a danger, and on hiking trails heat can cause death. So much of my life — and myself — has changed. I resolve to regard all its strangeness and familiarity with compassion.