To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 5 - S.I. is in the Heart [#19]

Rafael and Thea Marie arrived at the school before the parade started. Drumbeats from the school band reverberated in the air, priming both celebrants and guests alike for the big event. Alumni homecoming. The words conjure images of parade floats, street dancing, marching band, happy faces of alumni in colorful shirts painted or emblazoned with the year of graduation. It brings back memories of high school days in an event that is celebrated with fanfare and boisterous camaraderie. The Silay Institute annual alumni homecoming has become a much-anticipated affair in the city as soon as the New Year starts and the month of February kicks in to coincide with the celebration of the school's foundation day.

Rafael felt secretly amused. People donning crazy costumes converged on the school grounds, laughing, shouting, and making high fives. They wore attire copied from various fantasy characters some of which were unheard of when Rafael was a child. As they tried to name the identities of the characters milling on the school grounds, Rafael discerned that the theme for this year's event was Disney world so much so Mickey Mouse and other popular Disney characters took center stage. Alumni participating in the float contest, from recent graduates to the not so young ones to the middle age and old ones, wore ingeniously tailored suits, flowing dresses and multi-colored gowns displaying the Aladdin motif; props resembling trees and animal shapes made of styrofoam came from The Lion King; there's no mistaking a female character dressed in white surrounded by a retinue of male figures in pointed hats as coming from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; a group clad in all-black garb from Maleficent; and persons representing fishes and other types of sea creatures from the movie Moana, or was it from The Little Mermaid? Rafael could not quite identify. He turned to Thea Marie and asked her about it, pointing to her the make-believe characters in fanciful costumes as they entered the gate one by one or in groups. Rafael and Thea Marie watched with delight as they saw what Disney characters just passed them by, the lion-masked person and a beautiful young lady from Beauty and the Beast.

The alumni wore their batch T-shirts proudly as part of the school pride. There were as many colors as there are in the rainbow. Standing proud beside the street, they patiently waited for the parade to start. After a few more moments, there seemed to be a semblance of order and the first float started to move followed by rows of the class alumni on foot. It was a grand alumni homecoming for those batches who celebrated their diamond, gold, ruby, or pearl anniversary as graduates of the school. The host alumni of the event were celebrating their silver (25 years) alumni homecoming.

Thea Marie and Rafael stood in front of the school gate across the street and waited for the parade to pass them by. Each float was set up meticulously on the back of an open vehicle which slowly moved along Rizal street and wound through designated streets around the city. The floats carried the participants who displayed their motifs proudly, smiling, shouting, laughing, throwing candies to onlookers standing beside the streets, swaying their dresses and costumes in the air, acting the characters they wanted to portray. A winner for best float would be announced later. And spearheading the parade was a group of dancers in native costume, faces painted black, holding makeshift shields and spears, their bodies twisting in the frenzy of drumbeats, kicking and hopping, featuring a modern version of the ati-atihan festival dance. Rafael couldn't keep himself from smiling. Even Thea Marie. There's some kind of childish hilarity in the whole set-up, a wild and merry abandon of propriety and proper decorum, all in the name of the old and venerable alma mater, Silay Institute.

The parade lasted for more than an hour and when the last of the floats had returned to the school grounds, all those who joined the parade were sweating under the heat of the morning sun. The characters in crazy costumes climbed down from the floats in a hurry for a cool drink their batchmates had prepared, either ice-cold water in small plastic bottles orjuice in paper cups. There's no scene more lively and merrier than old batchmates coming together again, sharing, cracking jokes, shaking hands, as if they're not going to see each other again for a long time. Red- and blue-covered booths offering mobile communication services and real estate lined the sides of the metal-roofed walkway to the main building and inner area.

"Thank heavens the weather's fine today," Thea Marie casually mentioned to Rafael as they crossed the street towards the gate and entered the school campus. For Rafael, this was his first time to attend the event and he was excited to see his batchmates for the first time since he graduated many years ago. This is really a time for remembering, for reminiscing things both happy and sad, to go back to a portion in time when your life as a teen was forming, to be shaped by an experience yet to be had, to recall those memories which make your heart throb once more or cringe at memories that many times you have wished had not happened at all...