Romell Ian B. De La Cruz Lit 11-R31 The pan de sal is the traditional Filipino bread.

For some, it is the only thing that they eat to survive. Thus, we can call it, literally, the bread of life. We could also look at it with more symbolism. We could have the bread symbolize life and salt as meaning of life. n ! "read of #alt by $%& 'onzales, he uses this humble bread to symbolize your roots, where one gets his life, who he is and who he becomes. t starts out with the "oy going out every morning to get the bread. n his daily trips, he sees the large house of the girl he is attracted to, !ida. (e also aspires to be a great violinist. (e does practices diligently until he gets to a point that he was invited to )oin a band who is asked to play at different events. (is )oining the band is not really supported by the 'randmother. With the band, he plays at a party at !ida*s house. This party*s menu is full of food that is new to him. #o new, in fact, that he thought of packing some for him to go. This embarrassing moment was caught by !ida yet she was not appalled at all+ she even wanted for the "oy to stay a while so that he could take home more. n his embarrassment, he avoided !ida the rest of the evening. !fter the engagement, the payment was split. The boy used his to buy pan de sal, the bread with which we started this whole story. We see that the daily task of buying pan de sal builds him. t is here where this whole story revolves. !s he is relived of this task, he focuses on another. This new task, playing the violin, leads him to !ida. !n embarrassing moment finds himself wanting to go back to the start+ back to the time when he was buying bread. t is this buying of the bread at the end that shows us that he wanted to go back to where he started. t is a simple task yet he found so fulfilling. (e wanted to look back with gratitude on the event that started it all. ,ooking back to where we came from grounds us. ,ike a tree, it is our roots. Without these roots, we would be easily swept away by the rigors of the life. #omeone with a weak root system would not be able to go too high+ go too high and you will fall back down. What we need is a deeply-rooted root. With this, we can go to any heights.