Homecoming

lost and found

by Jeneen R. Garcia

published June 24, 2006

Five weeks ago, I put my transient lifestyle on hold. I went home to Davao.

Up until three days before I left, I was climbing Cebu’s highest peak in a typhoon, reluctant to admit I needed to be moving along.

How long would I stay? I don’t know, I told my friends. Most I didn’t even say goodbye to. Didn’t want to mess with goodbyes. Why are you going home, a close friend asked. I’m not really sure, I said. Tell me when you know, she said.

At the airport, a smirking check-in attendant informed me my baggage was overweight. It didn’t help that a few seconds before I had arrogantly declared that I would NOT be checking in my bamboo flute, because they were sure to damage my stuff. I pleaded, I argued that I could find a way to reduce the weight, but he just smirked.

Perhaps finally feeling the tension from moving out of both my office and boarding house at the same time, anxiously planning everything to save on moving-out costs, manually carrying some stuff to friends’ places, trying to finish all unfinished business at the last minute, all the while wondering if I was doing the right thing, I cried.

As if the sudden tears weren’t embarrassing enough, the check-in attendant ended up waiving my excess baggage fee, and asked if I still had enough money for the terminal fee.

Living at home has several emotional hazards, which is why I haven’t stayed in Davao longer than three weeks at a time since high school. Except for that time I stayed almost three months straight on a work assignment--at least then I had work to focus on. This time I resolved I would live through the hazards, no matter what, so help me God.

When I arrived, our three dogs were dead, and the puppy I had last seen so cute was now a pathetic, stinking creature suffering from mange. A few days after, thieves entered our lot for three consecutive nights. And our house was the same, if not worse, mess--the dripping ceilings, the unfixed light bulbs, the decades-old junk filling the spaces both inside and outside.

There is a point in your life when you have to stop running, and just deal with whatever you’re faced with.

The day after I landed, I insisted on going to the vet and waiting until our dog got treatment. Sick of hearing our househelp talk about seeing strangers peeking through our windows for a year now and actually seeing someone walk through the house in the middle of the night, I went to the police station to ask for assistance. There has been no break-in since; our dog is still recovering, but now looks much happier.

The 50-year old house is a bigger job, I know, but I vow to make a difference, at least in the cleaning-up department. Yesterday, for two whole hours, I gathered the plastic and glass bottles dumped in the mud at the back of our house to sell them to a junk dealer. About two years’ worth of cooking oil, soy sauce, and vinegar, my father said. I’m still convincing him to let go of two of our four washing machines, and three of our five refrigerators, some of which I believe are as old as the house.

Living with my father’s stubbornness is the biggest job of all, of course, but I promised--this time I’ll take on the hazards; I will not run away.

He has joined me for morning exercise and health food; on Father’s Day, I finally joined him for a massage at his favorite spa, which he has been inviting me to for years. He goes with me to church although he’s no longer as convinced, and I try to rearrange my schedule when out of the blue he says let’s go shop for groceries, or drop by the bank, even though I’m supposed to be working. Playing daughter is something I haven’t faced in awhile, too.

When my nerves wear thin, I have my room as refuge, which, I realized, I can now dress up and put furniture in, without the fear of having to make this space look anonymous again one day. I have my old writing desk from before high school, and my reading corner with a bookshelf, which I haven’t had for years.

So this is how permanence feels, for better or worse--cleaning the dog’s wounds every day, having a room to keep as my own, arguing with my father over breakfast one day, telling him stories about my friends the next. It is the challenge of facing the sameness of the hours, the courage of beholding each familiar thing with as much love as the day before without flinching.

This is why I’m here, I suppose. It’s been said that you are exactly where you are meant to be at any given moment. And home is where I must be, at least for now.

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and this is not the whole story ;-) the full version to come in another journal entry.