7 Months ago I entered a resort named Qi Palawan and left
the world behind. The luxury beach resort is placed in an idyllic setting on
the North-eastern tip of Palawan in the Philippines. The deserted beach has
amazing views of the sunrise and the yoga deck allows you to witness
spectacular sunset views of a horizon filled with coconut trees and distant
hills scattered against the backdrop of clouds streaked with pink, purple and
orange.
We are a small resort, with only 7 rooms, and sometimes it
feels like you are the only person around. There are many, many quiet moments
when the only sound is the wind rustling in the leaves of the coconut trees…
and in my house, the gentle hum of the generators.
We are remote… and when I say remote, I mean the kind of
remote where the closest ‘town’ is an hour away by car… an hour and a half by
motorbike… and 2 hours if you feel adventurous enough to take a tricycle (a
unique little motorbike-sidecar kind of thing that has a shell built around it
so that it roughly resembles a Filipino styled smart car… kind of…). The kind
of remote where the ENTIRE island runs out of bacon… or beer or some obscure
ingredient called capers. The kind of remote where some guests arrive after the
hour-long, bumpy drive from El Nido with horrified expressions and
apprehensions and moods that scream: ‘where have I brought myself?!’ or, in
more than a few cases: ‘where has my partner brought me?!’… Until they walk to
the front of the restaurant where they find a more-than-pleasant surprise!
The kind of remote where, for a long time, not even the
internet reached. Many nights were spent waiting for websites to load, trying
to send one e-mail… or answer important questions regarding the universe like ‘What
does the ‘I’ in ipod/iphone/ipad stand for?’ It’s the kind of remote where
those questions matter. It is the kind of remote where google chrome takes pity
and sent a dinosaur to keep me company… blinking (or winking, I’m not sure, I
could only see one eye) at me every few minutes. After about an hour of
blinking… or winking… the dinosaur would stop blinking and start running,
turning into a game that required me to quickly press space bar to make him
jump over the cacti in his way or else ‘game over!’
Qi Palawan is the kind of remote where you start paying
attention to, and appreciating the small things. Like strong winds that bring a
different kind of energy to the resort with people running around on the beach,
kites flapping in the wind, lines and bars and gear and people all baking in
the sun.
Small things like no-wind days that are perfect for
exploring the untouched dive sites in the clear water surrounding Northern
Palawan. Sites that are so infrequently dived that the marine life are still
wild and natural and either super skittish or extremely curious.
The kind of remote place where books are started and
finished, skin gets burned red by the sun, bodies turning a new shade of tan
every day.
The kind of remote place where you can quietly sit, watching
the tide change, airplanes leave trails in the clear blue sky like shooting
stars and the clouds drift quietly by, breathing through moments of extreme
sadness, gut wrenching pain, soul shattering ecstasy, quiet contentment…
It has become my world away from the world where I was
forced to come face to face with my demons, with nowhere to run to and nowhere
to hide, where I learned to look at myself in the mirror, witnessing all of my
flaws with excruciating clarity. I realised that my demons are enormous and
scary and threatening to overpower me. I realised that I am a flawed and broken
thing, fragile and vulnerable to break some more.
But I also realised that I am able to stand my ground and
hold my head high, facing everything that threatens me, staring it down, breath
racing, heart pounding… staring until the threat slowly shrinks, the air
hissing out until it lays limp at my feet.
I realised that my broken bits are sharp and sweet like
boiled candy that you gently hold in your mouth, fully aware that it could hurt
you but refusing to spit out the sugary sweetness of it. I realised that if I stayed
still and handled it gently and gave it time, it would slowly dissolve, the
sharpness of the edges melting away.
Somewhere, in a world away from the world, between the wind and white beaches, between
the tides crawling in… and out, underneath shooting (airplane) stars I am slowly
finding my Qi… with every excruciating, exhilarating, heart wrenching, euphoric
breath.
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