(By Rae Dawn Balagot Maestrado)
FOR A WHILE now, life has been an unscheduled freedom board for me. It has so much potential, yet like how a painter is afraid to lay her hands on her canvas, I cannot seem to glide my first brush stroke. So, although I hate to call myself this, I am what is commonly called a “tambay.”
Has a negative ring to it huh? It is alright though. My own timing is the perfect timing, as I would like to believe (or delude) myself. Anyways, the challenge now is, how does someone with a bagful of experience from the outside world and suddenly finds herself a homebody overnight, adjust to the new lifestyle? Because at this point, home is just an overgrown shirt. It is your favorite thing in the world, but it can no longer contain you in its fabric.
Sometimes I pass by old houses whose walls are already torn down – revealing only their skeletal framework. It is very odd to see its insides so exposed and out in the open for passersby to gawk at. I can only imagine what the individuals who used to grace the floors and four walls of those old, abandoned houses feel if they see the state of their house now. Would their hearts also crumble like the walls of their homes? At what point did their home start to feel like an overgrown shirt?
Because for me, it is starting now. My house is my old shirt that I can’t fit into anymore. And I have been in a cleanup frenzy trying to make it “feel right.” So, I gutted its underbelly and got rid of the stuff that has been hidden away for years. I had no time to be sentimental and mushy about every little thing because it slowed me down. If my house could speak, she would tell me I’m the ice queen reincarnated!
Anyways, I was watching “Under the Tuscan Sun” – a film that intrigued me years ago after seeing some of its playful clips that featured a recently divorced writer named Frances enjoying her company in her humble Italian backyard. And like Frances, I, too, have been enjoying remaking my house into a home. In the film, she said to pick one room in the house and make it yours. And then slowly go through the house so it can introduce itself to you.
It is funny how even in our own houses, the place we have lived in for most of our lives, still have plenty of parts unvisited and unknown to us. Most of the time when I did find something previously owned by either my late grandparents, my mom, or my late aunt, it is like meeting them for the first time. Like when I saw that one photo my grandmother gave my grandfather in her teens. She was so young and in love then. If they did not get married, that photo would have been adorning someone else’s house!
Revisiting these things and thinking about the life they had before we came along gets depressing at some point, I’ll have to admit. Because how can anyone really be okay when both memories of departed loved ones and their undeniable absence intertwine in the present time? In fact, I cried while I was cleaning and sorting things because it reminded me so much of my grandparents’ absence. Or maybe I was just past my bedtime.
Grief is really hard to deal with. Phoebe Waller-Bridge was right, “Grief is just love with no place to go.” Perhaps that’s what this whole cleanup is all about! Trying to find a place for me to keep my grandparents even after they have gone. Or I just have nothing else better to do, given that I’m a tambay. However, during this cleanup frenzy, the house did sort of reveal itself to me. We got introduced, and hopefully, I made a good impression.
It’s on its way to becoming a home, just a little different than what it used to be. And that’s totally okay.
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The writer hosts Woman Talk with Belinda Sales at 91.1 Balita FM Tagbilaran City every Saturday, 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. She can be reached at belindabelsales@gmail.com. Twitter @ShilohRuthie./PN
