Remembrance of things past.

On the main door are Gogol’s artworks. The door is painted dark brown, worn and flaking on the edges. 

Standing by the door, to the left is Gogol’s triple-colored desk of yellow, red and blue. It's made of plastic and his Dad has 10,000 things he didn't like about that table but it has to stay there because it was a gift from grandma. On that horrible-looking plastic table is the landline telephone and my collection of Granta. Underneath the table is the large toolbox that houses not tools but the archives of the negatives and the cameras that Keith and I have been using to take photos in the last four years. Next to the horrible-looking tri-colored table is the rickety computer table, to which Keith also has 10,000 things to complain about but chose not to because we had that for super cheap. On the rickety table is a flat screen monitor, a mouse and gazillion of little things that for some reason keeps on accumulating. Post-its, receipts, prescriptions, pens that don't write anymore, pencils with broken lead. Things that are without use. The flatscreen monitor is hooked to a CPU on a bamboo chair that has been repurposed as a shelf. A plastic box of my work documents is wedged in between that repurposed bamboo chair and a gray TV shelf, which also houses the defunct DVD player. Along with the DVD player are Keith’s dry seals – one for his architectural profession and the other for the plumbing profession. The architecture seal has a red band to make it easier to tell which is which.

In the past we used the levels of the TV shelf as temporary holders for our cameras, especially the ones that we often used – the minolta x700 (deceased), yashica t4 and minolta sr-t 101. At other times it contained the kids’ toys—the matchbox cars or their motley crew of little people (molded plastic toy soldiers mostly). The plastic box that contains my work files has a translucent white plastic cover, with the most exposed part showing signs of age, fading and sagging. On that box is where the living room electric fan sits. Sometimes it is the orange fan, sometimes it is the white-and-blue. we interchange them to avoid over-heating especially during summers.

Across the TV, desktop computer, fan and that blue plastic box is the bamboo sofa with a few missing parts. One was from a playful kick and the other was a result of being submerged in the flood waters for hours. We kept the sofa even after the flood because it is the most rational thing to do. Things that can be re-use, repurpose, upcycle we have to. Every thing deserves a second life.

Between the bamboo sofa and the TV is a blank space that we intentionally left like that, without a coffee table because it is where my father sleeps on days he is with us. Also, we use that space to spread the mattress and camp to watch TV or in-house movie night on weekends. The bamboo sofa also serves as the divider between our narrow dining room, which is nothing but an assortment of a green square plastic table and three green monobloc chairs. The dining table is sagging at the center and cutter/knife scars. If not for the persistent mud stains on the corners where brushes couldn't reach, no one could tell it also survived the flooding in 2008. Along with knick knacks in the house, the bamboo furniture, and the fridge, the table floated when the flood waters reached beyond one meter. We did clean the green table, thoroughly. Almost. I didn’t realize the oversight until after about three years past that flood year when I crawled under the table to get the ball that Gogol threw. Gogol was aiming for me but he hit the gray refrigerated beside the table instead. The ball bounced on the ricekeeper by the corner of the fridge and rolled under the green table.

i squatted to have a look and decided to make a go for it. I lay prone and slowly crawled towards the ball. When i reached the tabled, I looked up to make sure my head had enough clearance from the underside of the table and there I saw, cobwebs and brown spots that had clung to the plastic like a permanent fixture. I grabbed the ball, threw it back to Gogol.

"There are spots of mud here that we didn't clean," I announced as I crawled my way out.

But everyone seemed too busy to hear. I called out to Gogol to resume our play, telling myself I find time to crawl back under and scrub it clean.

When the sun rose the next day, I rushed to make coffee for Keith and myself on the little electric coffee maker, which would be the best possession we've ever have--at least in making sure that our day starts right.

The mud under the table clung and remained hidden, now completely forgotten.

Lessons from the Fire, Pt. 3

We lived at the 7th unit, sandwiched between the 6th that is occupied by senior university students and the 8th that is occupied by the caretaker, a retired government worker and his  wife who seldom goes out of the house. We have been living in the unit for the last nine years. At first the apartment was just for my siblings, myself and my father who works in the city on weekdays. I was unmarried and pregnant, and it was expected that pretty soon my boyfriend would have to move in with us.

When our first son was born, Keith and I took over management of the house. We had to because our little family is the one already occupying most of the space. With a nanny and a kid whose space requirement is good enough for 10 people, taking over was the most logical thing for us to do. When it happened, nesting began. Pictures on the wall started appearing. Books started accumulating. Tools that are too many they should be inside a shed, started piling up in the little corner of our living room, right underneath the stairwell. I started accumulating my own things for the kitchen—a second hand oven, a waffle-maker, a blender and a cheapo mixer that my nanny used to ice our first son’s 7th birthday cake. When our son left toddlerhood, Keith and I found ourselves with just enough time to take on another interest. Our son was starting to enjoy being on his own more than being with us and the entertainment that comes with it. With new interests came the accumulation of cameras, then the art materials that came after we took an art class in the summer of 2012.

At some point, when the second son was born, Keith found himself some thousands of pesos away from buying what could have been the family's first Volkswagen beetle. He settled for a bike instead. Six weeks after I gave birth I found myself buying my very first mountain bike. It was a hard tail, red and white that is one size too big for me, but I rode it anyway. Then the riding got too comfortable albeit complicated. We realized we couldn't go riding the whole weekend and clean it in time to use for commuting to work the next day. There was no way but to hoard and our house found itself with more bikes that it can can store, some had to be kept outside, by the window, secured by chaining it to other bikes. The bigger ones were unofficially parked in the caretaker’s garage, along with his blue-green beetle that has seen better days. Our caretaker only offered his garage because he was so worried our bikes would get stolen. He has his own real-ugly-bike, way uglier than the ugly ones we had, but he treasured it so much that he knew exactly how it would feel to lose something that is logistically important.

Then the fire came. On February 28. The caretaker wasn’t there; he went to the other island to visit his family, bringing along his wife and things they would need for a weekend trip. He left his blue-green beetle and locked their unit. Meanwhile, everyone in our house was taking their afternoon nap—my sister coming home from a night duty as a nurse, my son resting from his fourth periodic exam and my husband, falling asleep beside our son. He was awaken by the sound of the water overflowing from the bathroom tub. Everything after that was just a blurry memory of him rushing to rouse my sister, turning off the main switch, dragging my bike with him but found it chained and calmly walking out the compound blanketed in thick brown smoke. Then minutes after, they found themselves by corner fruit stand, watching in horror as the red angry flames eat our history away. My son, clutching the pillow he slept on—the only thing he was able to bring out of the burning house, too young to comprehend, knew the fate of his iPad.

“What am I going to do now, my iPad is gone. My iPad is gone.”

Then that night he asked his aunt, “What will happen to Nanay [mother] now? Where will she sleep when she comes back? What will happen to us now?”  

The image of his childhood home burning was too vivid it kept on running over and over again, on repeat, in his mind. The next day, he came down with a fever. On their way home coming from the drugstore, he asked to be brought to the compound. He said he just wants to see it again. He said when they left the scene yesterday the house was still standing. Little did he know it will be the last he could come close to it. 

It was midday and there was nobody there when they reached the site. With a burning fever, he got out of the car, with him an unopened can of four-seasons juice he was supposed to take with his medicines. He stopped by the charred gate, securely locked by a new set of chains. He stared at the driveway, now quiet and peaceful with everything inside burned to pieces. In absence of the violent aftermath of the conflagration, that very midday where he stood by the gate could just be any hot, tropical midday with everyone napping inside their respective units. 

The blackness of the charred walls and the beams, windows, doors that were turned to charcoal were enough to tell him it was time to go. I wish I knew what went on his mind as he stared at the driveway where he first learned to walk. All the eight years of his memories in what he considered home summarized into black soot and gray ashes.


After what seemed to be five minutes of forever, he briefly said, "Let's go," and got in the car.
He never spoke about the house again after that.

It was too painful that the pain refused to be felt. It took several days for the numbness to fade and for hurt to sink in. I wanted to say sorry for being absent because maybe if I was there it would have never happened. In the parallel universe where I chose to forego my chances to leave, life goes on and we are still living in the house that we learned to love despite the rat infestation, the obnoxious cockroaches and the holes on the roof that seem to just magically appear during thunderstorms in the middle of the night—the kind that refuse to show themselves up when the caretaker comes to check for maintenance. 

In that parallel universe, Keith will continue working on his bike project and it will be completed, he will hand it to me and we will try how perfectly assembled it was, biking to the Cinematheque to watch a European movie or to the nearby biergarten for a radler fix. In the parallel universe, I will continue to worry about the Minolta x700 that is close to its end; worry where to get it fixed and worry if we will ever find another one that we will love as much. I will continue hoarding the books and Keith will beg me to stop buying until we get ourselves a bigger shelf or move to a bigger house.

But parallel universe exists in another universe that we would never see in our lifetime and things like this happens because it has to.

When the pain was gone and all that was left was emptiness, I requested Keith to visit the site. Maybe he could get a piece of what’s left of his drafting table. We could pour clear resin over it and make it a centerpiece for our new house. I wanted him to visit and scour the place for answers.


“We should just consider it gone,” he said calmly.

And I guess just need to move on.

Lessons from the Fire: Pt. 2

There's a picture of a burning house on my screen. 

I look closer and count the windows; one window, one unit. 

One, 

two,

three,

four,

five,

six,

seven. 

I can’t find the eighth. 

There is too much smoke.

I can't tell the eight from the seventh.

I count again. 

the last unit in my count has the most smoke and the most blaze. 

Maybe i got the counting wrong. 

Maybe it is eighth that has the most smoke. 

I stand up and move away from the computer then look at the picture again from two meters away.

It is the eighth for sure...

Oh my god. 

nothing looks better. none of them will look better. 

not the sixth, not the seventh, not the eighth. 

Maybe it is not happening.
I count again. I can’t tell anymore. 

Everything is wrapped in smoke. 

Lessons from the Fire. Pt. 1

I clean the walls of the house. 

It has been months since and the specks of golden oil have taken over the gloss that used to be enamel. 

I wipe it with a dripping sponge, soaked in warm water with bleach and detergent. 

I scrub and scrub. I carelessly scrub away the kid’s doodle. 

It is a doodle of endless spirals in blue crayon. 

In mid-action, I thought: Maybe I shouldn’t. 

The dirty foamy water is dripping from my hands clutching the wet sponge, to the ends of my elbows, and finally to the red floor that has been coated with wax. 

The water droplet glistens on the shiny red floor like a piece of broken glass.

I go back to scrubbing. 

Maybe I should let it be. 

I take the dry rag and wipe the suds off the wall. 

The oil is gone, the creamy paint is now creamier and the blue doodle is now a dull, toned down version of the kid’s excited scrawls.