I can hear the sea

This is not a review. I've been listening to the original soundtrack of one of the most delicately moving films I've seen "I can hear the sea" more specifically "Umi ga kikoeru", an animated feature by Studio Ghibli.

I find it remarkable that I've found this work more endearing than the truly classic ones by Miyazaki Hayao, such as Nausicaa, and My Neighbor Totoro (His more recent works are "Princess Mononoke" and "Spirited Away"). Perhaps because it's not a fantasy movie, set in a high school in provincial Japan.

I'm really ambivalent about my high school experience. I went to high school at the Benedictine Abbey, officially known as San Beda Alabang these days. I had always felt the outsider - perhaps because I was too weird for the honor section set, and too nerdy for the cool cliques.

I was mostly a troublemaker too, who expressed his individuality by an obsession with Metallica and other rock bands. I remember being a freshman going through the "initiation" activities, which includes very mild hazing at the hands of the seniors (very mild because this is school sanctioned and sponsored, as opposed to the fraternity hazings that were punishable by expulsion). I can't believe that i actually went to school wearing a "Miss Saigon" T-shirt (I was a Lea Salonga fan), thinking that it was cool.

For those who don't see the sociology angle, what I did is so gay.

Not that I didn't have fun at all in high school, I'm sure I had lots and lots of fun. I made and lost so many friends, and I had one of those hopeless crushes on someone I never had a chance with (I think I survived on the support of sympathizers). Only that I remember it to be such a sad time. Not miserable, not deplorable, just sad.

I think a lot of the sadness or melancholy was due to a desperate need not only to merely belong, but to be dominant. I wanted to be great among my peers. I had thought that if I'd be cool by being notorious - and I had the gang who did the notorious things, and I would distinguish myself with my intellect. A cool nerd. (Of course I could/did not articulate it like this).

In my senior year I had more friends from the undergrads than from my own batch, perhaps thoroughly alienating myself by the airs I put on. I think I was living on a reputation of notoriety that the younger students aspired to have, and that my batch mates found juvenile.

In the end I ended up putting my money where my mouth was, and got involved in a fight three days before my graduation ceremony. One of my freshmen friends was being bullied by a junior, and I went inside the school after graduation practice, found the offender, and dragged him out behind the school where a host of other students who had axes to grind were waiting for him.

I was reported, caught and was punished by being excluded from the graduation rites. To this day I still feel guilty and awful - for disappointing my parents and grandparents (I was the eldest child and grandchild).

So young and so disappointed I felt, the only thing keeping me going then was that I got accepted to De La Salle University, where I felt I could start fresh and without a reputation. I ended up being classmates with four people from my high school (Hi Althea!) and my maturity would take almost another decade to make a breakthrough.

That summer I made new friends (in a new religion! I had dabbled in protestantism - initially because my impossible crush then invited me to join their Jesus camp for young people) and I had a great time hanging out by the lake in Caliraya, and by the beach in Calatagan where these rich-kid then friends of mine had property in. At the beach in Calatagan, Batangas, at night feeling especially sentimental now that high school was over; I looked at the dark sea where in the distance a few ships were slowly making their way. And I felt so sad.

I gave no great affinity with water. To this day I haven't learned to swim. And yet whenever I look at the sea I feel romance, and a great surge of sentiment. To smell a sea breeze! It'll take me back to that night in Calatagan where so many things were about to happen in my life that I really wouldn't know about, and yet my gaze so firmly fixed in a past that I don't think I'll ever understand.

For some reason, this soundtrack hits the spot. Its wordless melodies capture that dull yet intense sadness I feel for that part of my life. The film itself does this superbly, though very few of the events and characters reminded me of myself and my own story. Close enough though. Close enough.