I ran away to a new place so that I can heal the wounds slowly. I am broken into a million little pieces. I know it will take a lot of time, but I’m allowing myself to go through the process. Sometimes you need to find a place to start your life again. A place where you can run freely without any dictates and even better without any communication. Sometimes the child in you has a terrible need for what is surreal and drives your instinct for someplace to play. You have to start somewhere.
I transferred somewhere in between Quezon City and Manila where condominiums are actually not as high as you can see in the elite class of the dream city. But it is more colorful than you can imagine.
Children, vendors, teenagers, nurses, workers, bummers are everywhere - all kinds of people. Tom cats and stray dogs are everywhere. There are four sort of security guards/barker in shifting schedules. Parking is crazy during the night. Parked cars are very similar to how my little brother parked his Matchbox.
Our building’s paint is faded, chipped from the change of the weather. Almost each unit has a string of clothes like banderitas for a fiesta. There’s no elegant reception, drapes, elevator or even layers of chandeliers. The stairs are uneven. The hallways are dark, cold and wet even on the brightest day. The ceilings and walls are musty, covered with fractured cobwebs. I can hear the oil dancing in my neighbor‘s pan and the onions being sautéed on a skillet waft different aromas and flavors through the halls.
The corridors resound with disjointed voices and music; the wailing of babies in harmony with their nannies’ lullabies. The laughter, arguments, problems, even the simple conversation of these people are like chants. It gives you an affirmation of existence and a normal cycle of life.
DOORS
The door of each unit is usually closed. Trust is an issue and nobody trusts anybody now. Solicitors were shooed away, even missionaries. Each door is different from plain to sculpted, from green to blue, from mahogany to narra. Each door reflects different family, different persona, different lives.
Let me tell you a story about my door and the inside of it. Like everyone else’s, it’s closed. Even if you open it, it will automatically lock itself to close. The door represents as an opening to welcome various – yet familiar guests. Opening a door wasn’t that easy, it’s like revealing to a stranger your hideous secrets, giving them opportunity to draw in your life.
The owner of my apartment was a professor and a brilliant architect from a well-known school. However, his heart was not as distrustful as his door. This door plays a major role in his life. Students, professionals and other male friends that won’t be classified are his various guests. Some of them are knockers, some are knob-twisters and the special ones are the keyholders. September of 2007 was the time he last closed this door. He had a stroke that made him immobile and he left the apartment in care of his sister, who is my partner, Germaine.
The door is made of narra, with a single sculpted column embossed on it. This Greco-Roman pillar appears very bold and deeply symbolizes masculinity. It is heavy, thick and unscathed, almost phallic. The window grills contrast the art of its door. The welding is softly adorned with lotuses, painted in maroon, an indication of strong femininity.
The apartment’s floor is tiled in green and white. The place is smallish, a mere 6 steps from the front door to the kitchen. The walls used to be ungraciously accessorized with uneven bookshelves that held thousands of papers, hundreds of thesis and pieces of books, and this, I gladly dismounted.
The breakfast counter is purposely placed almost in the heart of the room to serve as a partition. The kitchen was designed to be illuminated with a nice light. When we first arrived, a collection of tupperware was visible everywhere. The kitchen cabinets still held pieces of plates and silverware. These are not just plates and silverwares. They are souvenirs from hotels and bars from around the world. These collections are now replaced by microwaveables, cheap plates and stolen glasses. There are bottles of cleansers, detergents – all sorts of chemicals under the kitchen sink. The maroon shower curtain serves as a door to the bathroom and the laundry area is separated by a tiled wall.
The stairs were slightly curved, matching the varnished door. The loft’s floor is made of entirely wood. Each footstep makes it creak. The ceiling is cold, roughly cemented and low. The cabinet is built-in, wide and doesn’t have a door so it exposes our whole wardrobe. The study table doesn’t have a decent light and needed the assistance of a table lamp. The bed makes the finishing touches and since mattresses were heavy and stores sells them over-priced, we settled ourselves to an airbed.
The outer side of our room that faces the other building is made of jalousie and was caged by ironed grills with a design of lotuses. The window provides a spectacular view. It gives me an opportunity to take a glimpse of my neighbor’s lives.
TRANSITION
So what do 28 year old runaways do?
I spent the first day cleaning. A house will never be a house if it’s inhabitable. I threw away the remaining papers, unlabeled cleansers and bottles of unknown chemicals like I threw away my baggage. I wiped away the dirt to each jalousie like I wipe the tears in my eyes. I swept the floor like I want myself to be scoured faultless. I mopped the floor to be spotless like I want myself to be cleansed. I smooth our bed neatly like how smooth I want my life to be.
The second day was spent making myself comfortable. A home is not a home if it’s lifeless. A home needs a sprinkle of laughs, a dash of hope, a splash of care and a speckle of love. A home has the ability to adapt the owner’s life. The mood adjusted the room’s temperature. The feelings that you exert will vibrate to its corners -- even the slowest movement, slightest tune and tiny whimpers are being whispered to the walls. Germaine and I cooked, ate, laughed, kissed and made love the whole day.
The third day was to familiarize myself with the community. I go down the neighborhood and observed. I mapped out the places that will be necessary for me. There’s a pharmacy, laundry shops, eateries, internet cafes, a water station, a bakery, salons, a talipapa and a dozen of sari-sari stores. There is also a Catholic church a few blocks away, but while there are at least two maternity and pediatric clinics, no real hospital is at hand for medical emergencies.
Each afternoon is catered by different vendors. They put up stalls and occupied the right side of building 2. The first stall was owned by nanay, an old plump lady. She was the Queen of Saging na Saba. She cooked bananas in wide variety. She sells turon, banana-que, banana fries and my favorite, maruya. She also sells different kinds of kakanin that reminds me of Simbang Gabi. Although her cooking abilities worked to run her banana empire, her spaghetti was the worst pasta I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.
The second stall was owned by the fattest lady in our community and she managedo be the fairest of us all. She flashes her first-class Louies Vouitton imitation handbag, sways with the rhythm of her waddling hips and pointed her porky finger to boss around her maid who do the cooking and the selling. She was the Burger Queen. You can have everything on your burger, from the bun to the de-takal na lasa na mayo, Papa ketsup, a rabbit’s cabbage-coleslaw, artificial cheese, super-pipit burger patty and slightly burnt egg topped with a bun and viola! Cheap Oil-burger on a bun!
The next stall was owned by a thin lady. She was so thin that she looked like a skeleton with a skin. She was like a walking X-ray. She sells Calamares - squid rings dipped in batter and fried until golden brown. Sounds good, tastes like hell! I had long lost my appetite for squids when I happened to watch Pirates of the Carribean. Captain Jones’ face was so disgusting! He’s a squid man rotting with algae and half of his face was covered with a starfish and his moving tentacles served as his beard.
Next to it is the serious woman in her late 30’s. She’s a nagger. She scares the buyers. You can’t ask the price if you’re not going to buy it. She spanked her children on the streets. She yells to her husband to shame. She’s a perfect definition of an Amazon. She’s the Ola Queen and she sells you-call-this-Mexican foods. The tacos are not edible.
Beside her is a woman with the waviest hair. She looks like she stepped out of the magazine page during the 80’s. She wears ribbons, bonnets and balloon skirts like Cyndi Lauper. She pouted as if ready to blow a kiss but not in a sexy way. Her lipstick is in shade of Puta Red. I call her Cyndi, Cyndi Lupa. She sells fish balls, squid balls, kikiam and kwek-kwek.
The girl next to her is the Mushroom Girl, bigla na lang sumusulpot. She’s like the commercial ad for Lady’s Choice Mayonaise, ‘Now you see, now you don’t’. She sells pails, dippers, hangers and basins.
Last in the row was the Balot vendor. The lady is fond of wearing leggings. She always matched it with dress-like blouses. She reminded me of Angelica Pickles of Rugrats.
The remaining days of the week were spent hibernating. That’s how tired I was. I was physically and emotionally wasted. Since I worked the night shift before for 1 and ½ years, I had become nocturnal. The sleep that I’ve been getting helps a lot. My body clock has returned to normal.
On the second week, I finally decided to be a housewife. I get up at seven in the morning and I cook breakfast usually associated with eggs, juice, tea or coffee, carbs and the usual morning talks. The cigarette is toasting and text messages are highly arousing, the other messages are friendly hellos and forwarded quotes, there is one message that I’ve been avoiding for a week now. This message will bring me back to reality and this message will come from Gerdine, a friend from previous work, waiting for an answer. She wanted us to apply for a job together. I want to tell her that I’m just starting to enjoy the seconds of my time now and I wanted more. I decided to text her later.
So Germaine and I ate, conversed, I smoked and packed her lunch, shrieked for some goddamn reason, activated my Globe unlitext. And after she left, I ditched the exercise program which I am about to start and snore the remaining hours away. By the time I woke up, which seems to be 50 golden years, the unlitext was activated within 24 hours. Hail to the Globe Company! I texted Gerdine to give me another week.
I’ve learned a lot of things. I learned that being inside the poor community shares poor satellite for cellular phones. To think that we’re residing on the third floor! How bad can it be? My text messages will be received every 30 minutes. I was told that shit happens and that each shit has an outlet where you can see a reason why it happened; like probably there’s a good thing why it happened, like rainbow after the rain or the Chinese ying-yang mania. The good thing about delayed messages is that I can collect my thoughts so that I can reply sensibly rather that “Uhuh”, “You’re right”, “It’s true”, “yes”, “no” and the famous “Haha!” Besides, I can always make the poor signal a reason that I haven’t received the message, right? Have you ever received a message that you don’t actually know how to respond? You go gaga thinking for an appropriate reply and after several minutes all you can come up is texting “Haha”. At least now I have a reasonable alibi that cell sites suck here and that’s exactly what I told Gerdine.
The succeeding week was spent watching Korea-novelas. I watched ‘They Kissed Again’ only to disappoint me with the ending. Besides DVD marathons, I enjoyed being a housewife.
The following week was the realization phase. My partner became busy with her new job and I’m always left alone. We don’t do the usual morning talks and she comes home late and barely touches the food that I prepared. I got tired of watching DVDs and finished most of the games on the computer. The house became quiet and it’s true that silence is deafening. It really echoes through the walls. The loneliness is unbearable.
I hated sunsets and during sunset, when everything turns lonely and sad, I pulled up my blinds and watched my neighbors outside. These strangers became my comfort.
If you’re going to look opposite my window, to my left, dwells a large family. Their family is so big that their grandmother and 3 Japanese Spitz dogs are included. I don’t know how they can manage because they’re like ballroom gowns inside the staircase closet. The grandmother loves gardening, so they made a miniature of it in front of their kitchen window. They had a birdcage that is empty. The children, both girls, play every afternoon.
The window directly in front of me is always closed. Since their jalousies were clear and not smoked, they used cheap-laced curtains to have some sort of privacy. There lived a simple husband who is married to the plainest wife and they run an uninteresting life. All I know is that one of them uses contact lenses because they have this large bottle of contact lens solution by their windowsill.
Next to the conventional couple, to the right, resides a very entertaining family. They throw occasional children’s parties and do videoke every weekend. They have an aquarium that lights their room. They have misunderstandings, troubles and laughter. There is shouting, washing and chatting. There are emotions. There are feelings, high and low. There’s interaction. They have the ability to live and not just to exist.
They are strangers and to them I am nobody, shuffling carelessly to my kitchen’s wide-open window. To me they are comfort. They are movies but you know they are real. This place is noisy and almost dirty, but it’s perfect. The city is starless, but it is absolutely perfect.
FOUL PLAY
So I did runaway. The realization phase was over and soon the problem began. My mom will move to a tiny room in Makati for 3K. I couldn’t afford the previous rent especially now that I’m jobless. It breaks my heart to know that I’m not giving her and my siblings a decent place to live in. I began to ask myself, am I selfish? I dread to go to work and the last time burns me out but being a bum means getting away from responsibility. The heartache starts when they told me that they are moving out and transferring to a smaller room. It’s like a slap on my face. Nakakahiya ako. I made my cousin pay for half of the ongoing rent and that cousin is supporting her own family as well. I let my brother shoulder all the responsibility even though I know hindi nya kaya. I need to do something and that something is a job. The sad part is the kind of job that I’ll be getting. I know sooner or later I will be landing on a call center job again because that’s the only job that can give me and my ability a decent salary.
Running away gives me time and comfort that I needed but I can’t be a ranaway for the rest of my life. I will have to come out from my hiding place and face reality sooner or later. This place became my playground and it teaches the child in me that after a whole day of play, you’ll know that the game is over and it’s time for you to go home.
Being gone for a long time changed me. I can now make the matches spark. I was once a girl who doesn’t know how to light a match.
Again I’m preparing myself for an unhappy stressful life. I think an unhappy stressful life is better than having heartbreaks and guilt. How can I compare desperate things and used the word better?
I believe that one day everything will be in proper place to create a beautiful picture like solving 1000 pieces of jigsaw puzzle. Life is ironic. Life is definitely an oxymoron.
“Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything’s going right and then everything’s blown up in your face” – Alanis Morisstte
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