By Jan Vicente B. Pekas
Session Road in Bloom and the whole festival may have ended by the time people can read this piece, but it can’t hurt anyone to talk about it. The road was well and truly beautiful as a flower blooming. All those who took part in it or those who just visited the place can attest to the exhilarating feeling when walking along the stalls. The smell of different foods, the laughter of families and people walking by, the feeling was a sharp contrast from life in the past 2 years. It looked like a sight from the past. A time when no virus disrupted lives. And the prospect of another war, or the expansion of the ongoing one, seemed absurd.
The festival has truly started a bloom of hope in some peoples’ hearts. The sight of a city breaking free from Covid’s chains seemingly coming into reality. More and more children going back to their classrooms to learn. As well as the usual sight of many tourists or out-of-towners with their different sounds and attires like wearing shorts at times when locals deem it inappropriate as when it is cold or drizzling, or their being in awe at something we consider so ordinary like fog enveloping the town, becoming the norm.
Yet, doubts about this progress continue to spring up and linger. An understandable attitude as we have witnessed late last year. When the number of covid cases followed a downward trend and we were seemingly headed to a better year in 2022. Then suddenly, the number of covid cases shot up, and we regressed to a state terrorized again by the virus. So, this progress may just be another false hope in some people’s eyes. Unwilling to get their hopes up for a seemingly impossible reality.
Although, we are still in the early parts of the year and we may not have gotten the great start we hoped for, but we can certainly try and turn it into a much better year. It should not be too much for us to keep on abiding by the usual health protocols like social distancing and to keep on wearing or pulling up our face masks to cover the nostrils instead of our chins.
So we should keep the hope going and growing. After all, it was hope that got us out of bed when the lockdown rules were at their strictest. It was hope that helped people go out and work despite the risks, to keep on living each day and finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel.
As the theme of this year’s Panagbenga, “let hope bloom”, it was hope that got us this far. So let it bloom. Let it grow all the way through. And it will truly be a wonderful sight. A beautiful view when seen from above.
Better to keep it strong. Protect it from anything that might bring harm. And wait for the sunlight that will pierce through the shadow of Covid enveloping this earth. From then, I imagine and so I repeat that our hope can grow even bigger, more radiant, and will spread to people of far-away places.
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