Of Pines and Providence
I wasn’t running away. Not exactly. But there was a strange rebellion in the way I packed my bags that morning, like the quiet kind of mutiny against the self I had curated—meticulously planned, excessively scheduled, precise to the decimal. Baguio called me, and for once, I didn’t ask why. I just went. Maybe it was muscle memory. My dad didn’t just spend summers there, it was a bimonthly ritual. That city was stitched into the fabric of his youth, like the scent of pine baked into the folds of every memory. My parents honeymooned there. And I was barely twelve when I first heard “Something Stupid” on an old cassette tape my dad played in a cabin's attic. I remember thinking, this must be what love sounds like: soft, warm, a little clumsy, unafraid to be sweet. There was no cynicism in it, only yearning dressed in gentleness. The first two days were loosely planned, our only real structure was getting coffee and walking until our legs remembered joy. My best friend (someone ...