LIT

Rachel Arandilla returns to a memory that’s close to home

I’ve moved and lived in several homes in different cities, but our first house in Iligan will always have a special place cemented in my memory. I remember the first house’s interiors, marble floors, high ceilings, open space, big windows. I knew every nook and cranny of that house from hours spent hiding, or playing make-pretend, or whatever little girls do.

I had a chance to visit the first house in my adult age. I realized it wasn’t as big as I remembered — when we were little, everything seemed bigger, I guess. As I stepped inside I felt like I was transported back to my younger years: the guava tree was still there, the back fence with broken glass, our adopted askal was still there, well taken care of by the tenants. Surprisingly, the askal still remembered me.

It’s like nothing has changed, except yourself.

I grew up in Iligan, a town near Marawi, where the government announced Martial Law. But terrorist threat, kidnappings and bombings

were never strangers in that area; conflict has always been around in that town. Because of safety issues, we weren’t allowed by parents to go outside and play. At all times.

I absolutely resented that rule. I felt like a jailbird growing up, as I spent most of my days indoors dreaming of adventure and exploration and whirlwind romances. In my forced daily afternoon naps, I was always reading novels, self-teaching skills or curbing my perennial sense of boredom, singing to myself, “When will my life begin?”

My only playmate was my sister; and we clashed more than we got along, growing up. Mostly because I got us both into trouble due to my need to be independent. At six years old I was already attempting to get away and ride a jeepney with my four-year-old sister in tow.

I grew up with so much intense motivation to demonstrate my independence, much to my parents’ chagrin who think I was rebellious and hopeless.

One evening in my 15th year on Earth, my father announced that we were moving to Cebu.

The first move from Mindanao to Cebu was intense for me: it showed me a whole new world and finally, we weren’t constrained to an indoor jail anymore. I finally experienced my first real mall, my first Starbucks Frappuccino, my first city lights, my first traffic jam!

I did not waste time adapting as the Cebuanos do: how the locals drop their L’s and speak in a harsher tone, how we’re supposed to meet and be seen at Food Choi on weekends, how everyone must have a Friendster, Multiply, and the newest social media site called Facebook; how I’m supposed to love Red Horse even if I hated the taste of beer!

That first move to the city gave me such a high that got me lifelong addicted and constantly searching for that kick. I spent a good number of my life looking for every opportunity to move. The jailbird is now a chameleon, easily thriving in new environments, assimilating in new cultures, meeting new people, adopting their habits and quirks, and then, becoming one of them.

And what happens when you do become one of them? Not much, you realize. Your new life becomes just that: your new “normal.” As your “new” life slips from exciting to normal, you get a sense of panic as you finally feel the same old wave of boredom when you were a jailbird in the first house.

And so you find that yearning to move again. Feeling restless as you yearn to move on to the next chapter: a new chapter that promises a new identity, new plot, new set of characters, new love, new conflict, novelties that make you feel alive again.

I felt so much love-hate for the first house because it witnessed so much of myself and how much it shaped me. The first house reminded me of how I badly wanted to be free, but it also shaped my overwhelming curiosity and imagination. I stepped outside the first house and saw a pile of hollow blocks and sat myself there. I saw our askal approach me, and then rubbed his head against my left knee. I stroked his head and whispered “Sorry, boy,” as I thought about how the dog must have felt 13 years ago the day we moved, when he woke up and found the house empty and find the whole family gone.

This made me wonder. If I had the courage to revisit my previous chapters, as I had revisited the first house, would I find a sense of conclusion in each of them? Or would they all be messy and confusing with a lot of unanswered questions?

I felt so much lovehate for the first house because it witnessed so much of myself and how much it shaped me.