Reconstructing my deformed meaning of home

WHEN I WAKE UP, my mother is screaming. The choral sound of plastic objects hitting concrete fills the house. My nephew Coy-Coy must have climbed in somewhere, now sending things flying here and there. Of course he did. It’s daytime. People are supposed to do a routine.

It’s been years since I’ve felt that the meaning of home for me has been deforming in slow-mo. My mother screeching again. My sister screeching in return. My nephew screeching to follow the trend. You might as well throw in our father’s normal speaking voice before, which was louder and more powerful than a scream. My father who used to be the balancing force that put everything to quiet. Except now. He’s locked inside his coffin. Sleeping forever in the past two years. I still find myself screaming at night because in my nightmare his ghost was haunting me. Or smiling because in my dream he was talking to me in a meadow, asking how’s my career. Oh, my father who I thought died never reading the stuff I’ve published on newspapers or in technical journals. Whom I loathed because I assumed he wanted me to become an engineer like him, or a medical professional, and yet he was not that civil engineer who found a fortune for us. The father who resigned from his jobs because he wanted to be his own boss and ventured into an ambitious business that was bankrupt, leaving our family savings depleted. When he passed away on the bitterest April morning eleven days after my twenty-fourth birthday, I realized I was wrong for hating him. During his burial, I saw my aunt who recognized me. She said I was the boy whose achievements my father had often talked about when they were in Tagaytay recently then, building a family vacation house. She said I was the boy whom my father had always been very proud of. Things I was fully unaware of… Well I thought I’d gotten used to this. The noise in our house, I mean. But every time I get a one week off, because I wouldn’t go home to my hometown for a tryst in the city, it’d feel like a whole new environment again when I return. Maybe it’s not a matter of getting used to something, like the noise. Maybe it’s a matter of living with the dramas of your life until the end.

Bread and buildings



That bread I prevent myself from eating to spare me a breakfast for tomorrow.

IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR lunch, but I haven't eaten yet. Thirty-one minutes past twelve and my colleagues are still in a meeting, my stomach growling. I reach for a slice of good bread but find only three left, so I change my mind. I seal the pack safely. Put it carefully in my pedestal. I must reserve these three for tomorrow, I realize. Because I’d normally gorge myself on three slices of bread loaf for breakfast. And bread like this, filled with raisins and made of fine grain, is not for ordinary occasions. In my case. Not the ones I’ll just eat anytime I feel like it. Because it's worth 69 bucks. You can get a cheaper pack, even bigger, for one-third that price. Only it’ll be the rough bread from an ordinary bakery. That one I usually buy to save money. So this fine bread is a rarity for me. A rarity. If only I didn’t decide on investing in a plush condo unit. In Makati Central Business District.

I could have chosen a condo deal a tad better than the one I signed up for. If my goal is only to own a property in the Metro. A deal that despite the monthly amortization rates will have me more money to spare. Which I can use to shop for some plush stuff. Or to save for something bigger and promising. Like a small business. To invest for my future. The smarter way maybe. A deal that won’t require me to pay more than a hundred thousand at once before the property’s turnover. Depleting any possible savings.