Kamias

Dear Family,

I'm sure you have noticed that among the five of us (and by extension, the whole clan - even the ones staying in Australia), I'm the one who spends the least amount of time in Kamias. If feel that I owe you an explanation for my frequent absences in family gatherings of the past years held in the very first place we called "home".

Contrary to what you might think, I have fond memories of Kamias, and I do treasure them to this day. Remembering the early years I spent there is always a source of comfort and serenity for me. It was at a time when "sheltered" didn't have the negative connotation that it has now. Our first home was an enclave that was conducive to a growing child. The three of us young ones - Ate, Egan, and I - we could have a different adventure each day that we woke up, and we did. We had all we need. We had two dogs (Brownie and Mansi), one turtle (no name), some pigs in the sties (for sale), a large terrace, a huge pile of rubble, a "sand box", a wilderness in the backyard (where gargantuan kaimito trees covered the sun and banana trees grew wild), and all the garden snails we can get our hands on. Of course, the house itself was good for exploring. With 2 storeys, 10 rooms, and a dark basement, there was enough space to play hide-and-seek, tag, and even some amateur ghost-hunting.

We could climb up the rubble near the front wall of the house and imagine it was a mountain, or have a sand war in the improvised sand pit that was leftover in a forgotten construction project, or attach our towels around our necks with safety pins and pretend we were super heroes with our "capes" being blown by the wind at the terrace. I could even remember a New Year's day when Ate and I had a furious torotot exchange with the squatters' area children who were visible in the distance at the back of the house, just beyond the kaimito wilderness. Of course, we also had an ever-present Grandmother who never failed to give us kids treats. It was a fun and it was great growing up in Kamias.

Those days are long gone now. Which rather brings me to the point. The Kamias I remember was a suburban paradise. Now it has been reduced to a recipient of urban blight. One by one, the things that made the place magical simply disappeared over the years. The turtle was the first one to go - it disappeared some time in 1980. Then some buildings were constructed in the free spaces, occupied by tenants who lived in a nearby shack. In time, the buildings' walls were darkened by the pollution of the increasing traffic in nearby Kamias Road, and the tenants multiplied in number and became inebriated freeloaders who took advantage of Lolo's generosity. Trees were cut down, and more structures were put up. The final blow was when the wilderness in the back yard was cleared and sold to Meralco. From that point onwards, it became a ghastly place of metal and concrete. Lola's demise in 2005 was a mere afterthought in Kamias' decline.

You want to know why I don't like going to Kamias? Because, as it is now, the place is ugly, it's dirty, it's noisy, and its cramped. Whenever I go there nowadays, I can't help but compare it to the way it was. I could still clearly remember the fresh smell of the large pine tree at the front of the house, and the cool shade of the nearby and equally-towering santol tree, which always seemed to be in season. There used to be plants and trees where there are now contraptions and cemented pavements. The driveway where we used to run as kids looks a lot smaller now, and is perpetually stained by the used oil that seeps through the underside of the vehicles of the Aircon shop's customers. A thick wall now blocks the view of the former wilderness at the back, where one can see just a dirt road stacked with electric equipment and bulldozers. It's bad enough to look at as an adult, and it's a lot worse to observe as a child - even if that child is the one I used to be, hidden inside me. It's sad because my memories of Kamias is one of the very few good things that I have in my life, and actually visiting the place nowadays just depresses me the longer I stay. Each visit violates my good memories and I'm afraid that if I get used to its now-deplorable state, I would begin to forget how good life was back in those early days.

Everyone needs one special place where they could always retreat into when they get too stressed about the excesses of the 21st century. Most people are fortunate enough to have that place still exist as a physical reality. In my case, it only exists in images both in my memory and some old photographs. Photographs on paper are a bad way of storing memories because they fade and discolor, and so I much prefer the images in my memory. I'm afraid that by visiting Kamias now, these images wiil be eroded into oblivion. I don't want that. And so I stay away.

=====Chito