January has been quite a month hasn’t it? In my case, a brilliantly staged and fantastically (and I do mean with elements of fantasy) executed destination wedding in the tropical land of the Philippines started off the month/year for me. Life at its best. Soon though, the post-wedding glow was dimmed by an event watched with worldwide trepidation. On January 20^th, the inauguration of our very own, home-grown, real life fascist took place. Welcome to 2025, we thinking Americans muttered, wherever we were. But more about that later and later and later…

Now? Well, let me describe my present location in the world…which is the village of Old Busuanga, on the island of Busuanga, situated at the tip of a long skinny island named Palawan in the 7,641-island country of the Philippines. I came here on January 10^th for that granddaughter-wedding, and will stay in this part of the world until March.

Is life not overwhelmingly strange? This peaceful tropical island, looking out my bedroom window in Scott’s house through a yard of big and small tropical trees onto an ocean crowded with even smaller islands than this. Couldn’t possibly feel more at ease with life or safer…unless, as a bit of a news junky, I’m reminded of what the US just imposed upon the planet and the future of my grandchildren. Stop it Marjorie. For the length of this post, at least!

Now, promise, I’ll stick to stories about my island adventures with Scott. Next, I’ll try to do the wedding justice in a pretty-picture post, and after that I’ll let the real-world creep back into my line of thought.

As many of you know, son Scott and daughter-in-law Sandra, live in the Philippines for a goodly part of each year. They retired at the earliest possible age so that Sandra could realize her dream of a sculpture garden/spiritual sanctuary with visitor accommodations in her childhood home of Busuanga. Scott’s retirement dream had more to do with diving and cycling, but also included a desire to try his hand at small farming ventures on the property. And they both are inveterate explorers of all of Southeast Asia and beyond. I can report that nearly everything they set out to do has been a success…although chicken farming has taken a humane form for Scott: he obsesses about the care and feeding of his ‘ladies’ (I can’t decide if that sounds unpleasantly paternalistic or not…), appreciates their slick good looks, admirable egg-laying skills, and their determination to clear every foot of land of tasty bugs. He would no more rid one of its head than torture a puppy…so there goes the kind of Sunday dinner my mom used to prepare.

Their family complex, Magalong Beach Resort, on the ocean-front property inherited from her parents, has become the welcoming place of which Sandra dreamed. It’s now a full-fledged resort , modestly-sized but with a truly peaceful and authentic natural charm. It includes a reflective pathway winding among both grand and more intimate sculptures representing the four mysteries of the rosary and stations of the cross. Even though this space, called Holy Land, is based on symbols of the Catholic faith, so deeply ingrained in Philippine culture, it has a most tranquil and hospitable aura. To me, it feels a space where believers and non-believers alike, can stroll among the trees and flowers, and the many finely carved biblical images, and feel the ocean calm and rural quiet with ease and enjoyment. An event hall, visitors’ center, two villas of ten rooms each for guests, a bunkhouse-type building for group stays, and Scott and Sandra’s own home complete the complex.

The grounds are typical of Philippine coastal land with a large and varied assortment of trees, from towering to leafy almost-fern-like coconut palms. There’s little underbrush so it’s a clean view to the ocean, which right here is the calm version, the tide gentled by the numerous small islands between here and open South China Sea.

Many of you, in the chilly north of the world, will find me most fortunate to spend part of the winter walking on the beach with my nice ‘kid’, driving about this small, lightly populated, and seriously-scenic island of Busuanga, and reading a lot, while getting back to normal after a hard transition from Albuquerque to the Philippines. The thirty or so hours of travel; time difference; and objection of my stomach to foods not primarily consisting of bread and butter knocked me down further than expected.  As you’ve heard me say once or twice, old is not a convenient stage of life. Now, though, island exploration is underway, and many photos will follow as the next weeks offer up one perfect tropical day after another…

In my own words, not Wikipedia’s: Busuanga Island is 340 square miles of small forested mountains with scattered villages, picturesque beaches, and great diving, especially wreck diving around Japanese ships, bombed and sunk during WW2. It still feels far-distanced from the contemporary world in many ways, even though tourism is growing by leaps and bounds since covid times. The main city of Coron has a population of over 65,000 but doesn’t feel quite like a small city, more like a pleasant, slightly ramshackle collection of somewhat appealing or small unimposing buildings. Magalong Beach Resort is in the village of Old Busuanga (pop. around 1000), near the village of Salvacion (pop. around 3000). Between them, a number of tiny stores and/or market stalls line the streets; there’s a pharmacy or two, and a few small restaurants, churches, and government buildings. There are relatively few of the products we typically pick up at Albertson’s, Walgreen’s, or Costco available on this island. For most items of contemporary life, one travels to Manila, an hour’s plane ride or a long ferry ride away. More about everything of a more personal nature in another post. This is way more than enough words for now.

Maybe more words after all: For me, there seems to be no such thing as being able to separate out the good and bad of the world today. It’s all woven in and out of everything. Which strangely enough, does not mean I’m desperately unhappy. I’m not. In fact my own life still is filled with a kind of gentle happiness…but it feels tainted, even it its best moments. There’s that metallic taste to it, like even good food on your tongue when you’re sick.

It’s 3:11am in the Philippines. My sleeping pattern is always off whether here or at home. Bed early, up often in the middle of the night, feeling fine. Back to bed for another couple of hours early in the morning. All good. Unless I click in to one of my first-call news sources: Guardian, Le Monde, or NYT. This morning it was the NYT…on my way to Wordle. And here is video of Palestine refugees trekking home to Gaza. Dusty roads, pulling carts, hauling luggage, kids, old people, hundreds trudging back to total wreckage intermingled with the buildings, bomb-damaged but standing, which must be made back into homes. Goddamn men and their pompous bullshit and obsessive grasping for land and ownership and their greed and brutality and duplicity and their need to subjugate women and anyone not like them. They come in every color and age and religion. They’re Jordanian and Israeli and American and Russian and Swedish and Nigerian and …everything. They’re deadly. Not all men. But So Many (and damn their equally despicable kowtowing women).

And the waves lap softly against the shore…