WHEN YOU ROLL back the years to linger for some moments or so in the whereabouts of your pre-school days, you can certainly recall the lines-in-rhyme:
“RAIN, RAIN GO away.. [then, you pause a while.. then resume,] “come again another day!”
[WHY DID YOU pause, but later continued? We kids in those days used to run those lines unhampered.. from: “Rain, rain.. up to “..day!” ain’t that right?
[AHA! PERHAPS.. BUT considering the now – these present times when analyses, deliberations, and maturity itself compete with our words and deeds, perchance
[YOU SPOTTED THE epigrammatic ‘ring’ of those lines – that sometimes on one hand, we may also want the rains to go.. (away!); but on the other, we want them – or we need(!) them, to stay]?
APPLIED – BY ANALOGY, in general or in daily practical life, indeed: there are things we think, see, or say – we don’t want, or not like at all; yet, on second thought or so, we realize we need to re-consider, or even change(!) our Stances. And then
WE SPRING BACK to ourselves and declare: “I’m sorry, I’ve changed my mind.. about it, about them.” Or, “oh, I just said some in-haste?” Or, even a: “not exactly.. not necessarily.”
BUT SUPPOSE NOW – you are on firm stand, or belief(!) that you’re right, Yes! – all right all along, and you feel you cannot (of course need not therefore) change ideas or opinion – about this or that.. or them?
‘TO OPERATIONALIZE’ (MENTOR Dr. Cos’ expression, let me borrow), let’s cite you some examples, situations:
ON RADIO, ESPECIALLY the short drama segments, you hear often the almost in-built opinions or regard – personal or cultural, about certain/other individuals and to wit:
ONE WHO ACTS ‘fresh’, or constantly jesting, and (somewhat) ‘bragging’ will not make a good lifetime partner anyway, so
OUTRIGHT – OR LATER, you nip his attempts, or maybe you try all – the heavenly bodies’ might, to ‘avoid’ him – since the person at least that he is, you find it burden-weighted, kaxa mabel-atti, to directly tell him “go, fly away!”?
BUT THE FELLOW has Patience – or some lots of it, and he keeps hovering around.. though maybe unlike a ‘total disturbance’ thing or insect. By these,
ARE YOU AT times tempted to say: “Rain, [please] rain: go away.. [but you may] come again another day!”? And you confide this and the related details to your folks local in ‘these Heights’, ditoy Kabanbantayan. How do they react – or what do they say?
PLENTY AND VARIED – like you often would say unguardedly of close relatives and friends.. but now, you’re focused to a special comment or advice many of them have said to you:
“SINTIL MO MANGO AH! (“Give regard, YOU, MIN, EXPR!”) or something like “Return or give back – however minimal, the regard, greeting, etc., accorded you at least, EXPR!”). In another scenario,
IN THESE TIMES, of crises [but also of], and politics, your cousin – seated next to you in the car tells you: “there’s someone there looking here waving her hands a-high and widely smiling.. look she’s pointing at you! Look please cousin, look!” And you reply:
“I SAW HER first – a while ago before she did; that’s why I shifted gaze on those mountains afar. Nah, don’t let me look there or at her. I’m not in true mode for politicians, you bet. Especially that she is a, a trad..” [she p.a.u.s.e.s and] the cousin shoots some more:
‘A WHAT? YOU’RE saying – a trad..’
“YES COUSIN, A trading one – trading her smiles and kindness somewhat/Khuno for my vote – our votes later. You can sense that too, can’t you?”
‘OKAY, COPY. BUT given that – or granted, Sintil mo mango ah! There, she’s waving and pointing at you again. Wave back, at least, cous.’
SENTIL HAS BEEN adjudged by many users of the term as truly ‘native’ in origin – one local theme has it rendered in its (formal) noun-form: Panintil – the said theme being: Panintil tan panihbay ni Khait. (Transl: “Caring and on-spot greeting for fellows.”). But I wonder:
IS THE EXPR simply coincidental – or a ‘look alike’, of the Western (or Spanish e.g.) sentir which means: “feel, be sorry, be sorry to, to sense, regret, etc.”? Or, sentirse, “to feel for oneself”?
SOMETIMES, YOU CAN hear among the Nabalois say to their young adult children: Sentil jon pasiya y asshal jo! (Transl: “Take serious cognizance – or awareness, of your studies!”). Ayuhh nete!