I feel sad whenever I stare at the calmness of days at 3 pm afternoons in random areas where trees and fields reside.
It reminds me of my summers spent at my grandparent’s house with cousins when we were children.
When I was in elementary, my brother and I would spend weeks at my lolo and lola’s house every summer just to get away from home and to give us time to spend with our cousins on the mother’s side. Our parents would come visit us every now and then to give us allowance and would ask us to go home which we would refuse and ask for more time.
My cousins and I would spend the days doing mundane activities as children but that made us closer over the years. In the mornings, after breakfast, we would divide the task of sweeping the yards off of the dried leaves collected over night. The house was surrounded by fruiting trees back then and just an overnight accumulation of dried leaves will take 30 minutes out of the time of 7 children.
We will then help with chores inside the house like washing the laundry or cooking the food. My personal favorite was during every Sunday, when it was time to go to the market to buy rations of food, which my parents often did at our house without involving us. I think that’s how I developed my fondness of looking and buying for fresh and cheap food that comprised a simple diet of vegetables, fishes, meat, and occasional fruits.
Food was minimal over at my grandparents’ house since not all the parents of my cousins were able to provide for them that’s why they were raised together on a budget given by the whole extended family from my grandfather’s bloodline, including my parents. I learned how to observe that helping yourself to a large share of food during every meal is insensitive because there are so many mouths to feed.
Gratefully, my brother and I on the contrary, were able to be raised by our poor parents with our needs met and enjoyed occasional extravagance. Looking back, food was never an issue at home but the joy is different when you are sharing a meal with many people even though the food is limited. There are times when I was a child that I would feel guilty and sad whenever I saw my cousins fight over food or when we wake up at night with our stomachs growling and there were no available food to eat at their house.
During those times, I would wish I was at home.
I remember one time, there were no biscuits nor milk to snack on so we decided to cook rice in the middle of the night and shared a lone can of Spam given by our uncle abroad. We were still hungry after but the laughter we shared while making the meal is a memory that I still remember today.
Continuing, we would spend the afternoons under the trees or in bed. When the sun was too hot, we would salvage large cartons and would lay them down under that big lumboy tree wherein we would spend the afternoon in nature, talking about our summer crushes, text mates, school friends, or listening to music from our small keypad pressed mobile phones that were Bluetooth-sent by random people.
When that dreaded 3 pm comes, all of us would be called back inside the house to help with outside chores. We would carry large buckets of water to water the plants all over the yards and the girls are obliged to help in the kitchen to prepare the food while my other cousins would bathe the pigs and feed the chickens.
And after all that ‘persecution’ ends, we would run into the hills to sight-see, play, or collect cashew nuts or random fruits. Our summer friends, children who also came to live with their relatives in the province for the summer would join us and we would be glad to have them as our company.
I think it’s how I got all my knee scars. I rarely play outside my house at home and so when I play with my cousins outside, I would easily get bruised or scratched but I think at least that made me more normal.
When I was a kid, I dreaded those 3 pm afternoons because of all the house chores that we were subjected to do by my aunt and grandma but today, 12 years later, I get emotional just by looking at the warm sun-rays spread all over the floor during 3 pm in the afternoon and the birds are chirping outside like they used to when we would lay down beneath those trees, worry-free, ignorant, and innocent.
I realized I am old and that I will never get to experience those again. It was a last time which I never got to fully realize until now. It will be one of those tell-tales that I will tell future acquaintances and friends.
My heart sinks every time I process that my cousins and I are now in different parts of the world, chasing dreams, making ends meet, and struggling to live this life as our parents did.
That 3 pm routine was so intricate in my system as a child that I have carried the memories in my heart now that I am a young adult who can now ponder and contemplate that I was at my happiest back then, when I was young, ignorant, and innocent.