Unpacking
It's Sunday evening here, close to 3 AM, but I can't seem to sleep. Paul snores. The Kalihi roosters sound their wake up calls a little too early. And the lights out by the airport and Pearl City flash and twinkle outside my window. I hear an airplane overhead, make its landing.
In the living room, my pink suitcase is flapped open and my black backpack is half-deflated. The dirty laundry has found its way to the wash. And some of the pasalubong (gifts) have found their way into the hands of family and friends along with travel tales that come out in bits and pieces.
I am home. And I just came from "home". I wonder how do you love and live in more than one place at once ? Is it possible: to be rooted and routed simultaneously? (My internal body clock seems to think so by making me stay in time with the Philippines.)
Seriously, I know so many migrants figure a way to live in multiple places out of economic necessity. And while I don't want to romantize their sacrifice- for me, after this short trip, I long for an eventual "reverse" migration to the Mountain Province; because I realize if I don't go back, something vital will be lost.
What that is- I can't quite describe. I could say knowledge of land and the cultural practices that come with stewardship. Except it is more than that. I just felt it, sitting by my grandmother's side in Tadian.
She no longer speaks, is confined to her bed, and is all but skin and bones. I am not sure what makes her stay on this side of the living-
except I know that whatever knowledge was intended to be passed on, whatever breath of final wisdom that was meant to be whispered perhaps has not been yet uttered.
The day we gathered family elders and extended family at grandma's home, we were all there in the sala (living room). Voices enlivened the place- opinions about land tenure were being exchanged. And from the bedroom we all could hear Apo Bucket (old woman) Mary moan to somehow be included in the dispensing of advise. Some of us rushed into the bedroom to see what might have made her stir.
Each of us could only intuit what she might have intended to say. Each of us seemed to wish for a secret power to call her lively presence back for a few precious words. But all we saw were vacant eyes, wide open along with her labored breathing that made her frail, congested chest go up and down.
Paul asked me when I returned, why I had no photos of her. I told him, I did not want to remember her the way I saw her. It was too difficult to see her come to this place in her passage. The Grandma Mary I knew, danced and sang, "You are my Sunshine.", and told stories about surviving, loving and living. I cried when I saw her. I cried when I left. Tears, yes for her. But for me, too, and the time and stories that can no longer be reconstructed.
The day, I awoke to leave Tadian-there was a small stye on my right eye.
I had not gotten sick the whole trip-but I took that small temporary ailment to mean, that I was not seeing something correctly and that I had to adjust my vision.
Then, literally, moments just before we left Tadian, we went to fetch my father's cousins who were to accompany us to Baguio. As the van idled and family loaded bags, my father jumped out and took me to the house where he was born. Unfortunately, the house had been sold-but the land remained in the family. The gate was locked so we could not enter.
Looking through the gate, Dad explained that his placenta is buried with that house as is his maternal grandmother. He shared the memory of his mother washing dishes while they looked at the stars and how she told him to reach for them. For some reason, the story moved me to bend down right then- to pick up three small, gray perfectly round stones. It was as if my body wanted to say- yes, and as you journey beyond, remember: remember, too, this holy place of earth that grounds you.
Perhaps, this unpacking and the writing that will follow in the days ahead will help me to do just that. And in my return, I will be able to touch this aina (Hawaiian for land) here that grounds me, right here- for right now.
In the living room, my pink suitcase is flapped open and my black backpack is half-deflated. The dirty laundry has found its way to the wash. And some of the pasalubong (gifts) have found their way into the hands of family and friends along with travel tales that come out in bits and pieces.
I am home. And I just came from "home". I wonder how do you love and live in more than one place at once ? Is it possible: to be rooted and routed simultaneously? (My internal body clock seems to think so by making me stay in time with the Philippines.)
Seriously, I know so many migrants figure a way to live in multiple places out of economic necessity. And while I don't want to romantize their sacrifice- for me, after this short trip, I long for an eventual "reverse" migration to the Mountain Province; because I realize if I don't go back, something vital will be lost.
What that is- I can't quite describe. I could say knowledge of land and the cultural practices that come with stewardship. Except it is more than that. I just felt it, sitting by my grandmother's side in Tadian.
She no longer speaks, is confined to her bed, and is all but skin and bones. I am not sure what makes her stay on this side of the living-
except I know that whatever knowledge was intended to be passed on, whatever breath of final wisdom that was meant to be whispered perhaps has not been yet uttered.
The day we gathered family elders and extended family at grandma's home, we were all there in the sala (living room). Voices enlivened the place- opinions about land tenure were being exchanged. And from the bedroom we all could hear Apo Bucket (old woman) Mary moan to somehow be included in the dispensing of advise. Some of us rushed into the bedroom to see what might have made her stir.
Each of us could only intuit what she might have intended to say. Each of us seemed to wish for a secret power to call her lively presence back for a few precious words. But all we saw were vacant eyes, wide open along with her labored breathing that made her frail, congested chest go up and down.
Paul asked me when I returned, why I had no photos of her. I told him, I did not want to remember her the way I saw her. It was too difficult to see her come to this place in her passage. The Grandma Mary I knew, danced and sang, "You are my Sunshine.", and told stories about surviving, loving and living. I cried when I saw her. I cried when I left. Tears, yes for her. But for me, too, and the time and stories that can no longer be reconstructed.
The day, I awoke to leave Tadian-there was a small stye on my right eye.
I had not gotten sick the whole trip-but I took that small temporary ailment to mean, that I was not seeing something correctly and that I had to adjust my vision.
Then, literally, moments just before we left Tadian, we went to fetch my father's cousins who were to accompany us to Baguio. As the van idled and family loaded bags, my father jumped out and took me to the house where he was born. Unfortunately, the house had been sold-but the land remained in the family. The gate was locked so we could not enter.
Looking through the gate, Dad explained that his placenta is buried with that house as is his maternal grandmother. He shared the memory of his mother washing dishes while they looked at the stars and how she told him to reach for them. For some reason, the story moved me to bend down right then- to pick up three small, gray perfectly round stones. It was as if my body wanted to say- yes, and as you journey beyond, remember: remember, too, this holy place of earth that grounds you.
Perhaps, this unpacking and the writing that will follow in the days ahead will help me to do just that. And in my return, I will be able to touch this aina (Hawaiian for land) here that grounds me, right here- for right now.
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