Up in the air, thinking of home

Airplanes are for me, touchstones. It was on a plane where, many years ago, when the first day of the rest of my blessed life happened. At 23, the desperate need to pull my family out from the pit of hardship rested on my shoulders.

It wasn’t an obligation. It was what a daughter, who was never given a chore all her life, would have always taken on, the minute she saw her father break apart. My superhero needed saving from an infinity of doing all the fighting alone.

My father’s only mistake was this: giving me and my siblings the good lives we deserved even if it meant compromising his. So I did what needed doing. I gave up a promising career in advertising and consequently shelved writing, the only thing I believed I did best. 

Instead, I worked as a registered nurse and chose to make a living over making a life. Seeing Daddy burden-free now, makes my sacrifices worthwhile. 

Between shifts and weekends spent working, I found refuge in scoring cheap flights to quick escapes. 

So when I ride airplanes, I always spend a moment to relive my journey and celebrate how family, like most Filipino migrants to the first world, has always been a potent inspiration. Not forgetting my story is what keeps me grounded and grateful, especially at times when the lights of progress gets to blinding.

I look around the cramped aircraft: all 10 rows of seats taken, and imagine how many small-town big dreamers this flight contains. Surely, there’s a handful of people who share stories similar to mine: children bent on giving back to their folks; parents who juggle jobs to provide for their kids; lovers who have lost people to distance; and those who, amidst that distance, hold on to promises once made under mango trees.

I look at the foreigners in the mix too, and smile whenever their eyes catch mine. It is my way of saying “Thank you, for giving my country a chance.”

Homecomings are the most expensive of trips. But I will always take it each chance I get. Nothing can ever top sleeping in one’s childhood bed, now old and squeaky. I miss the smell of sea at low tide, the tangy taste of steamed banana dipped in fish sauce; and my mom’s morning nags. 

I miss the landmarks of my youth: a wooden bench outside a neighbor’s sari-sari store, my barrio’s pineapple-littered roadside on summers; and the blue and white chapel by the hill from whose pews, were where most of my answered prayers were first asked.

You see, I absorb so much in my heart and I keep memories alive in thoughts. I guess that is how I am able to write: by piecing together the fragments of memories I store in mind. Making a living gets in the way most of the time. But moments like this, on a 7- to 8-hour plane ride home, and in the time of me burning the savings I toiled very hard in the last year for, I take a moment on a touchstone.

I think of my father, and how we are so gonna talk drunk together, about this; and about dreams coming true. – Rappler.com

Rain Campanilla is a Pinay blogger-backpacker based in Sydney, Australia. Her attempts at fitting entire life stories into postcards can be read at Words and Wanderlust. When not traveling, she works as a Deputy Director of Nursing at an Aged Care Facility in NSW, Australia.  Follow her on  wordsandwanderlust.com, Facebook, Instagram: @words_and_wanderlust and on Twitter @wordsandwander_