A lazy Jan­u­ary sun com­pletes its dawn amidst the bluish sky.

It’s a breezy 18 degrees in the metro and the lazy streets of Orti­gas have just begun to host a timid stream of people walk­ing almost-leisurely in this quiet busi­ness dis­trict. Too bored to even read the book I brought, I spend my early-morning break loung­ing alone in a cozy Star­bucks corner look­ing past the tall glass walls, observ­ing the strangely-wintry scene out­side while slow Jazz music plays softly in the back­ground. I don’t rec­og­nize the tune, but Kelly Sweet’s Rain­coat begins play­ing in my head as the song’s always reminded me of light, relax­ing moments like this one.

For a second, I almost made myself believe that I’m actu­ally in Hong Kong instead of Manila. It’s not every day, nor every year, that I get to see our denizens taking the streets dressed in suits that would nor­mally be too hot to wear for our South-East Asian cli­mate. If only I could see some Chi­nese girls in posh leather jack­ets and knee-high boots strut­ting the street like a runway, then I’d really think I’m in Kowloon’s Sal­is­bury Road right now and not here in Exchange Road. But even with­out the pretty ladies, the view right here is still quite amus­ing and rather refreshing.

Day-workers donned in styl­ish coats slowly pace their way to office towers, their unmasked enjoy­ment of this unexpectedly-cold weather serves as a façade to their hardly-expectant feel­ings toward the day’s work ahead. Night-shifters wrapped in warm sports jack­ets seem to be just hang­ing out mind­lessly in side­walks, cig­a­rette sticks in hand, look­ing too drained from the busy night’s work to even remem­ber where to go. There’s no skinny guy cir­cling around in run­ning shorts this morn­ing, and no old ladies taking their dogs for a stroll either. This already not-so-crowded area appears even a little more deserted today. Even pass­ing cars seem to be taking it slow and easy. It’s like one of those times when it’s rain­ing out­side and every­thing around seems to slow down—except it isn’t rain­ing today. The place has become almost serene, the people almost silent, the weather almost winter.

It’s in moments alone like this, away from the dis­tress­ing con­fines of office spaces, that I get to calm my mind and shift my thoughts on a more reflec­tive, con­tem­pla­tive, and even cre­ative state. I remem­ber what I read last week from a small framed pic­ture in a dif­fer­ent Star­bucks store in Las Piñas. It says:

We all need some time to ourselves—just a few min­utes a day to get reac­quainted with the one who’s been there since the beginning.

So here I am, lost in thought, having con­ver­sa­tions alone, get­ting back in touch with the one I’ve always known.