Took a trip down memory lane again when my parents and I visited my great grandparents' house in Roxas where my aunt and her husband are staying now.
I haven't been here in forever. It's pretty cool/strange how we become so acquainted to something that we take it for granted, then the next time we interact with it after a long time it feels so foreign, but familiar.
That wooden Igorot statue at the top of the stairs used to look so much scarier, so much taller. Now it's about four to five feet flat, I realize, still carrying the head of his fallen enemy, maybe not so sinister after all.
I find it funny how I hold so much more fascination now than I did all those times we came by when we were little. I look at all the antiques in wonder when before they were just furniture. I guess it was only now that they counted as remnants of the past to me.
Notice how I'm avoiding using the word "nostalgia". Would you count that when most of the memories I'd made here were... detached? I don't want to be so cold, but that's honestly how I see it.
The house wasn't lit up by anything other than the sunlight. It was nice, but I couldn't help but think of Bob Ong's Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan whenever I looked at the religious figures mingling with wooden models of the Igorot. Also, their kitchen was really dark. I had to muster up enough courage to pass through that place.
I really did want to take a lot of that stuff home even if I knew there wouldn't be any room. I don't know; it's been a long time I've seen a house with so much history interwoven in the peeling lumber. The smell of age wafted through the air like a giant turtle and was oddly very comforting.
My great grandparents have passed now, my great grandfather going first. It's too bad I couldn't really "appreciate" them when I had the chance. All I have to remember them by is the childlike wonder I went through earlier today. Also, I wish I had a better camera to capture all of this. I wasn't even planning on taking any pictures until we got a look at the place.
It feels exactly like finishing a book when you're a kid and coming back to it about ten years later. You remember so many things but it all feels so new.
/end throwback-slash-reflection post
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Life Updates:
Yes, I know, I've been a bad blogger. I can't even blame College now that it's sem break but apart from a lot of debut-related ups and downs and one trip to Pampanga and Tarlac with my mates from the Philippine Collegian nothing's been too eventful. I promise I'll blog/vlog after all of this blows over - I have a lot of stories to share, after all.
