To be back home was rare as rare as it is to be lolling freely and running errands for thirty minutes without a child dangling ’round the hip. In attachment parenting terms, I should be freaking out. You know, calling my sister every two minutes to check if my 16-month old daughter is screaming her lungs out for Dear Mommy. But for the first time in 15 months, I had 30 minutes all by myself and curse me, but I felt free like I never have before.
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| Where I lived. |
My parents’ house was a mere three-minute walk from the bank, so I had time to drop by the only church I visited for 25 years every time my life was in some sort of pickle. It is no Manila Cathedral, but it is close to me above any other Catholic structure in the country.
Adjacent is the school where I grew up to be the chunky child who, well, was every English teacher’s pet – all bragging aside. For whatever reason, it still beats me. Everyday since prep, I walked to those gates and back, with my scoliosis-inducing backpack, solitary and easy.
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| A familiar face back Home. We call him Ogie the Pogi. Do you see the very striking resemblance? |
They say Home is where the Heart is. Every night, I find my Heart in bed, nursing to sleep as I read to her Little Nutbrown Hare’s story. Six days a week, in daylight, It alternates between the articles I write and the cream shores I dream of lying down on. But on that drizzling day, I find that It is where It should be.
Ah. To be home and to take away something familiar back to bed,
to haul the old out of the cobwebbed recesses of memory,
to witness the past once, twice and relive it over and again.
