Of the many places where I lived with my family (I counted about thirteen), it is this bungalow on a 280-square meter lot in Marikina that holds my earliest memories in the early seventies. This 2-bedroom affair had a driveway large enough for 2 cars, a front yard where a mango tree was planted, and a small area in the back that had a wooden swing set.
My recollections as a girl of four or five, go back to the first time I went to school in Kindergarten. I'd walk from my house to school, taking a right turn at the corner and entering a small mesh gate after the next.
It's funny that it is only the first and the last weeks of school that I do remember. Probably because, the business of any child of that age is to do nothing but relish the freedom to play.
I spent most of my time at home my own with my tea sets and dolls. The living room that I recall had these orange L-shaped sectionals and stereo turntable with cabinets filled with vinyl record albums (called LP's). The music of salsa or Glen Miller's "Pennsylvania 6500" (or something that sounded like it) would have my parents do the two-step on the parquet. And then there was the cheerul chorus of Ray Conniff and his group singing Christmas songs. Even to this day, I strain to hear those tunes when October, November, December (the "ber" months, as we'd say) start rolling in.
On most days, that center of that parquet floor, for me, was primary dumping site for my toys.
However, I think the OUTSIDE was my domain. The details that linger in my head include one morning when my older brother (or his friends) caught a common brown bird, and I held in my little hand, and then realizing soon after that I must have squeezed it so hard because its head rolled limply to one side with its mouth bleeding.
Then there's this little swing made from a piece of rope strung from a limb of a kamias tree in the back yard. Using a piece of folded cardboard as a seat, I'd kick back as far as I can manage while I bathed in the orange hues of the afternoon sun. Perhaps I was never required to nap in those times because I picture many, many afternoons enjoying my own freedom.
My brother, the household helpers, and I used to roll out a green plastic mat on the front lawn. I would do cartwheels, pick the blossoms from the flower bushes, or squeeze myself through an wide space in our iron fence.
Among the neighbors I remember visiting was a brood of older kids named after German numbers (eins...zwei...drei...vier), and a girl named Cecille Lee, who showed me how to remove paint stains on our hands with malunggay leaves, and the next door neighbor whose wall I'd often climb over to get to their house.
Ivory Street was our playground, and we were fortunate that cars did not pass through it very often. When the big kids played their games, I'd sit on the pavement, making the bottoms of my undies dirty because I had this stubborn habit of refusing to wear short pants.
Even the sight of certain plants, like the "san francisco" with it riotous patterns of yellows, reds, and greens, this plant that had bowl-shaped leaves, or another one with leaves that looked like gathered lace, remind me that we, too, had those same varietes growing along the low walls that separated our property from our neighbors.
After more than 30 years, my parents and I chanced upon an opportunity to see it and I was so surprised to find out that the place was not as huge as I recalled. The new owners had the whole house re-designed; the streets were actually quite narrow. Looking for my former pre-school (in the hope that I'd meet a teacher who would remember me?), I instead found what looked like a small storage building.
As vivid as these memories are, the first five carefree years of my existence were filled with joy, innocence, and wonder.
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