Growing Up Under the Cover of Leaves

(not the same house)

We kids lived in Lola (Grandma) Tanciang's house in Tandang Sora Street our entire childhood and early into our adulthood. It was a rundown, two story, wooden home with a zinc roof that towered over some of the one story houses around it. Whatever paint there was on the outside had long peeled off and over all, it looked awfully gray and distressed. It was a character of a house in a neighborhood of bigger, respectable homes.

In the house resided a variety of creepy crawlies--cockroaches by the hordes, big spiders, lizards, mice and of course, the ubiquitous mosquitoes, flies and ants. I liked to see those tiny lizard eggs in the walls hollowed out by "bokbok"; cockroach eggs stuck to our clothing and closets; spider eggs hide in secret places. Our elders said that when you open up a spider egg you can figure lucky numbers inside to bet in Jai Alai.

The lizards traversed the walls and, with expectant heads, looked up on whatever bowls of food may have been left on the table. Cockroaches rule at night, darting in and out of the cupboards and cabinets. Open a cupboard at night and you would see dozens of them scurrying from the light. At night, there is also the occasional mice or two scampering across the floor. All these insects were a given-- taken for granted--and, as my brother M once remarked to my young son who was swarmed by flies one day-- "part of the family.”

Living with insects and rodents are not that horribly disgusting--if you've lived with them your whole life. You develop a tolerance for the filthy, the icky and the distasteful.

Inside that house on Tandang Sora Street, the "lawanit" ceilings were painted by my lola a deep green deflecting whatever light may be filtered in from the outside. Some of the lawanit boards may have contracted from the cold or wet, for they were curving at some areas and no longer attached to the rest of the ceiling thereby leaking dust and cobwebs into our living quarters.

Lately, in my mind, I've called it the house of many windows. It had windows in every corner. Even then, around the house it was dark because of the shade of so many trees. It was surrounded by fruit trees--

indian mango tree

star apple, coconut, banana, mango, indian mango, guyabano, santol, iba, lansones and guava. Those trees were there as far back as I can remember. I have vivid memories of climbing the santol tree and of picking the sour fruit from the iba. How wonderful it was to see the clusters of fruit hanging so temptingly from the branches of the iba tree!

cluster of iba

There were starapples in abundance.

  starapple

I liked picking the tiny, immature fruit which were hard, round and shiny. Star apple leaves blanketed the ground and I would gather them in a basket pretending they were fish, piling them one on top of the other in imitation of the roving fish lady that passed by everyday.

I had a memory of being stuck between the trunks of the guava tree, unable to climb out I had to be rescued.

 

guava tree

There was a large rosal (gardenia) bush whose fragrant flowers my lola would pick to put in a vase and a clerodendron and pink crepe myrtle tree. (The sight of these familiar flowers here brings back childhood memories). There were hanging pots of viny, green ornamental plants, and potted green plants and colorful varieties in the plots of earth on the sides of the house.

I shared the second story of the house with my Lola for several years. Many a night I would gaze out of the window in the darkness of the room and watch the silhouette of trees around me. I would lie there mooning and pining like some lovesick puppy, listening to Matt Monroe or Johnny Mathis croon over the radio.

It was where my cousins and I would hang out and speak of our secret crushes and chat our time away while enjoying sliced Indian mango

or semi-ripe papaya dipped in soy sauce and vinegar or crunchy Chippy or chikinini corn snacks. I would watch the world from my perch on the window pane or listen to the neighbor play amateurish piano or lie awake to laughter and karaoke singing of people partying next door.

In that second story room, I’d spend hours reading books and daydreaming, mornings and afternoons, interrupted only by my mother calling me to dinner.

Sadly, along with the trees, that house is now gone forever. It was torn down to make way for a new one- more decent, and concrete. I remember then how devastated I was at the loss. I was uprooted and displaced, without a home for the first time in 26 years. I remained homeless for a while. My siblings were scattered abroad. I felt like I lost my connection, my roots. It felt like the ground gave way from under me. I was gripped with a terrible sadness. I did not have a single photograph of that house on Tandang Sora Street.

I've lived in different houses since then but have never grown roots anywhere but there. That was the house that my subconscious mind still considers home, the house that shows up every once in a while in my dreams.

Even now, whenever I have nightmares of being chased, I find myself escaping to the room on the second floor of my childhood home. The flimsy plywood door of that room is locked by inserting a large nail into a burr hole drilled on the side of the door into the wall. I dream of the door being banged open, and I, searching for a way out, would always find myself escaping to the roof.

That upstairs-room was my haven on earth for many years. That may be the reason why in my dreams I run there to escape from villains, witches and monsters.

 

santol tree

They may have taken the house and the trees away from me, but there is one thing they could never take away -- my remembrances of the house, and the trees.

No matter where I may end up in life, and no matter how many thousands of miles away I may be, there is a state of mind that is called childhood, and there is a place in my heart that is called home. And I find that for all my underprivileged upbringing, I still had a childhood so rich and a home so fine, where I never fail to return.

Ah, childhood... growing up among the trees and the darkness and the myriad of insects and the many windows with glimpses of the moon on summer evenings...is still idyllic for me. It is a special place, I know.