Wednesday, September 01, 2004 100 years of carrying a house By Leticia Suarez-Orendain
Turtles are legendary in their slowness, their pace ungainly. No matter. They get to their turtle destination whether it's to go to that cabbage patch for a snack of healthy chlorophyll or run in a race turtle-style but just when it is about to win the gold medal, some crazy rabbit wearing a red kilt pushes it aside. No matter. Turtles like bronze too.
Box turtles are the most awesome of the lot; they live to a ripe 100 years. Being vegetarians, I'm pretty sure they don't suffer from arthritis, and hypertension. For 100 years they patiently carry their shell that we humans call their home and with nary a complaint.
A specimen of austerity, a simple dome on its back doubles as the bedroom and living room.
I know turtles go through much trouble laying their eggs but I wish I had the simplicity of their shell. Aug. 25 was my moving day, an unnerving event for me always as I feel I'm sticking my head out to something I can't control, something I don't know.
For the nth time I had to move home - stock, lock and barrel, and all the bad purchases lumped in too.
Although I did not like it, I had to because my roof now includes Ed, my husband, and Ezzer, my stepson.
I don't know with turtles but every move chips off a bit of the signposts that should have rooted me to the old places such as Camputhaw: an adopted stray cat, Ming Yao, I had to leave; a rose bush I had nurtured back to blooming.
Last time it was the sight of gorion birds that sought cover for night among the leafy branches of a mango tree owned by my neighbor in B. Rodriguez.
The brown birds gave the mango tree a personality and a voice that could sing an evening lullaby. This would go on till the last finger of light touched the sky and then the singing gradually stopped and soon the world was silent.
A world without birds is a mute world indeed.
Fortunately, the birds have adapted well to the cosmopolitan life and can be found almost anywhere I had to move home.
Home for a while was in Camputhaw where I met a dying rose bush and a gray stray cat that would flee at my call, "Miiing, miiing yao, ming yao!"
Ming Yao, the tom became. Bribing it with juicy leavings from our inun-unan supper, Ming Yao soon came running at my call and soon got to calling me to come to the door to open it at night.
The rose bush was another matter. For weeks I ignored it until one morning it greeted me with five ruby-color blooms. From then on it was trim here and trim there, using my little knowledge of pruning.
After a few weeks, I had a healthy rose bush that never stopped blooming, a lesson I learned in giving.
The rose bush taught me that the more you take away the more it gives back. You can't out-give a rose bush.
My new house in Oprra has little prospects. The walls echo our voices. There is so much space, so much fill.
As for nurture, there's a grown-up iba tree that doesn't need love. My consolations are the brown birds that wake me up in the morning, and the sunshine that filters into the master bedroom, which faces east (thank god), otherwise I'd be completely forlorn.
There is sadness, I must admit. For once in my life I am vulnerable because I allowed love to come into my door. While I marvel at how for 100 years turtles can patiently carry their shell, the simplicity of it all, I do not envy the female's propensity to mate with several males in the "heating" season.
My shore will always be Ed. Every morning we hear the same brown birds singing to life and together we bask under the same morning sun to know we are alive. Now whether I will carry new houses for the next 100 years, I don't care as long as it is with him.
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