Forest

"Don't let the past hold you captive," he tells his students seeking to find a way to sell emotions for a living.

"Feelings are fleeting, they're like water that flow or sometimes will get stuck inside your collar, but rest assured if they don't drip, they will dry up."

Up until the 7th session the students refuse to believe him, but it is during this session, where they have lied down on the floor then stood up and drifted off and floated into the forest of their past that they start to understand the power to utilize it in selling emotions for a living.

" He makes us cry," the one from Lafayette says but he just laughs it off.

"I've never said, today you will cry," he laughs it off and leads them into the darkness of the room.

Little do they know that he too goes there. If he is able to instruct selling sadness for a living, or make Laughter re-appear into their lives, he too has to expereince it, doesn't he?

This morning, as many mornings in the past, after Bustelo coffee and Cinnamon and Spice Oatmeal, he needed to run to the forest and experience it all over again because yesterday when he was conducting this experience with Group B, all of sudden, someone tapped his right shoulder not realizing that someone in his past would join them in this experience, it took him a few moments to get himself together as feelings started to hover around his students. Laughter was starting to appear in someones lips; Sadness was dripping in another's eyes; Anger even took hold of someone out of the room.

So around 843 am, he got himself up, hoodie over his head and the sounds that conjure feelings, if he is to teach people how to sell it for a living, well he himself has to also sell it. It's field work. He got outside, shorts, Vibram shoes, earphones on.

Trees...Korean Church...Cross...Gardeners...Cyclists...Stop sign.

moment to breath.

Trees...runner...clouds...bird.

A bird in flight alone.

Then he gets there. His forest. It was sudden, like water.

"Feelings are fleeting."

One of the three appeared, he turns and asks,

"Bakit nagpakita ka sa'kin kahapon?"

"Aba, paano mo tuturuan ang mga taong makaramdam, kung hindi ka rumaramdam?"

"Oo nga po, pasensya na lang, napatigil po kasi ako nung nilagay nyo ang inyong kamay sa'king balikat."

"Apo, huwag kalimutan na lagi akong naririto, kung pinapakita mo sa mga tao ang gubat, kailangan mo ring pumunta roon"

"Opo," and he smiled, as water decided to drip down his cheeks.

Feelings are fleeting, he thought to himself but today Lola stopped by for a visit in the forest.