the Old house

Now that I could see it via Google Earth: flat, insignificant and buried among millions of similar tin rooftops.

My home.

We left in a very hurry. 2 minutes max. No time for goodbyes. No time for tears.

Just leave. NOW.

Bang! never to return, to have what they call closure.

The body might have been relocated, but the brain remains locked in place, in time.

Frozen. As if the images of Earth stood still, at least in my brain.

In however many square meters my incubator was, it was enough for millions of cherish moments. Guitar d’amour….Quel Sera Sera….Ngoc Lan (the streamy stream)….

Every afternoon after school. Music started flowing past supper.

Violin, guitar, hoarse voices, and even mandolin. We were loud. We tried to break the confined walls. We wanted to be transported and out of the box. Tin roof, brick walls and iron gate. Out front, I remember having to water Mom’s evergreen pottery.

Neighbors tolerated us. Where else could we all go? At the end of the serpentine alley was a print shop where workers worked out of their own house. From one end to the other (two tombs that blocked alley entrance, forcing traffic to wind hence it is called serpentine alley) all smooth concrete. It made for a good water slide in the monsoon season.

We slid and slide through childhood. Our version of snow day. Kids play jump rope, hide and seek.

Then boom. The end of everything, at least to my knowledge. Hurry hurry. Evacuation.

The US is leaving, for good. This time, it’s real. It’s like Paris before Liberation. Only in reverse. Paris of the Orient, before Liberation (depends on whose POV). Families left behind. Momentos unbrought. Memories lingered.

Same rooftop, same rain on tin roof. With or without the view of Google Earth.

We have the technological benefits that are the envy of royalty of the past (Louis XIV with all this art collection couldn’t come near what I now see from my desktop). I see home. I see home from above.

Bird-eye view, satellite imagery. We moved, ant-like to find better pasture. The past is not even past.

It’s still here. Like the lay of the alley. With contour and detour. With connection and links. With dots and data.

I see it now. TIME. The flow and fluidity of history, of technology and disposable values. Love and loss. With each tangible gain, we experience ten intangible loss.

No wonder I feel hollowed out. The Old House. The music sheets, the guitar, the songs and the singing (pre-karaoke).

Echoes of the past. Like a ghost dream. We just exist, for a while. Sharing pain and frustration.

Occasionally, joy. Happiness eluded us. Not many instances, not during war time. We mourned more than we celebrated. We cried more than we laughed. In pain more than in pleasure. In the end (or the beginning, depends on whose view), we, I , had a viewable photo from above, with the help of Google Earth.

It never was a castle, nor was it in a slum. Just our home, where once, I experienced time past, surrounded with loved ones. My incubator, my alley with two huge tombs, there to constantly remind us time is short.

Louis XIV himself would have been envied. His view from above would be his castle, now laid hollow like an abandonned construction site of a glorious past. Even the past doesn’t seemt to past. At least for me. With a press of a button, I can revisit it. Can post it. Can write about it and share.

You hold on to what is near and dear to you. I mine. Tin roof and all. But when it rains, like, really hard, there is no music in this world could be more pleasant and endearing. It gave us amateurish musicians a break, from the brisk heat and inequity of living. When it rains, it democratizes. Just like in Les Parapluis du Cherbourg. Just like in Louisana or Philadelphia.

Just like the view from above just now. Every roof looks all the same, and my pain of the past seems insignificant. I wish for you what I always for myself: a roof over your head, and love in your heart. That’s why we, despite being nomadic, still linger and refuse to leave the site of our loved ones, albeit buried underground for days.

6 feet under, or 30,000 feet above ground. We traverse forward, experience TIME and hopefully love that lasts. Too bad Google Earth can only help expose the tin rooftop viewed from above, and not the depth of sentiment my home afforded me.

We left in a very hurry. But what we carried with us stay with us, for a life time. I saw my old house for as long as the screen is still on, but Home stays.