Coming home

WHEN one comes home, the time one has been away is measured by changes.

Many things vie to catch my eye: the cleaned and buffed Crucified Christ, the crown of thorns catching the glint of dying sun and dripping bronze blood; the light grey coating of molds dusting the carved Ifugao couple bearing harvest offerings; and the rubber slippers bearing the shape and weight of my soles I hunt for and find among his shoes.

Grey fuzz coats even the female figure’s soles, created with a few flicks of the knife.

I pick up and return the couple on the shelf, which displays couple figurines collected from various places. From Indonesia to the Philippines and Vietnam, these pairs invoke harmony in the union, as evidenced by the male and the female figures mirroring the same actions.

Only the Ifugao couple is different. Though having the same bald heads and dangling wooden earrings, the man stands astride while the woman kneels. In the store, the sight of her bare soles stopped me until I noticed that even while kneeling, her head is nearly at the same level as his.

The most telling changes are not found in objects but the living. It rains nearly every day now, but the rains came too late for the pepper. The leaves are shrunk and wrinkled, like crepe cut-outs of green framing the red and orange pods that respond to the rain like impertinent little boys’ penises.

I search for the oregano that once grew as high as my waist. The kamuning is lush but subdued; no fireflies and no full moon mean that, during this short visit, I will not experience the white kamuning blossoms perfuming the nights.

The bamboo remains a presence but has become a stranger. From being a few clumps of straggly stems, there is a marching row of bamboo that the husband’s onslaught of pruning has disciplined into a vertical mat of green.

My mornings used to begin before the bamboo that unpredictably broke ground or shot for the sky overnight. After the fog crept away and before the sun broke over Laguna de Bay, clusters of dew turned the stems into arcs of diamonds refracting light.

Birds once nested in this recalcitrant, unkempt growth. A wisp of bamboo spurred avian lovemaking, its pliability ending often with the bird on top slipping off and falling before instincts kicked in and the inept lover flew back and tried again.

Standing before this tidy, tame wall of bamboo, I hear no bird-song, no liquid rustling. Coming home, I notice how, while I was away, change came and made itself at home.


(mayettetabada.blogspot.com/ 0917 3226131/ mayette.tabada@gmail.com)


* First published in SunStar Cebu’s June 25, 2017 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”