Antulanga

Walking with my classmates towards the van after paying for a certification that we needed from the registrar, as I looked far over the field, where the Silliman church was clearly visible with the majestic cuernos de negros partly covered with clouds as background and the array of acacia trees extending to both of its sides like wings, then gazing on the newly trimmed grass and shrubbery on the field near me, smelling the aroma of their substance, I noticed a flower bent over by its stem. Apparently, the flower escaped the gardener's cut. It was only then that I realized, in all my years as a student of the university, that the shrubbery surrounding the field in this part of the school was gumamela, or antulanga, the flower that we studied on back in high school. This flower is prominent in Hawaiian art and summer designs. It often symbolizes summer and the tropics, often denoting happiness, vigor, fun, and adventure. 

However, this scene shows a lonely flower, not quite like what it often represents. I went nearer to it, trying to examine if it was still alive, and brought it out of the leaves that concealed it. Now, it stood over the shrub, showing its colors and boasting its beauty. But then again, it is lonely. Beautiful but lonely. Being the only red among the green, it stood out, the leaves now seemingly bowing to it, hailing it as queen of them all. A question now comes to my mind, would someone rather blend with the crowd than stand out but stand in loneliness? Is being different or being the best worth the price of loneliness?

The lonely flower was the strongest (or probably luckiest) flower there was. Emma Smith, the name of a woman and the title of a Movie that I watched about two years ago, after being the favorite of all the trials and persecutions in the world, said that being strong is such a lonely thing. The world is like the sky in the night full of stars. You see millions of stars, in general a mantle of glitters in homogeneity, yet at closer look, it is dotted with stars that are unique, stars that stand out in their brightness or color, and they are few, they are rare.