To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward - [Margaret Fairless Barber, 1869-1901, Author of The Roadmender].

(Dedicated to Tita Cel, Mama and Auntie Orang-- the three remaining daughters of my Apong.)

Of the strand of moments that I want to go back to again and again, one is the memory of Anao.

Even if I spent only our summers there, it held more memories that the rented houses we had in Antipolo. I guess because Anao is where my roots are or maybe because that's the only place then where we felt we - my sister and I -- belonged.

Or maybe because that's where I developed my full senses. Up to now, there's a certain summer warmth or light breeze or a silent music at the back of my mind that return me to Anao.

Anao is where we discovered the joy of playing (sha-tong, a Chinese baseball where instead of ball, we use bamboo sticks), being responsible (diligan n'yo kaagad ang mga halaman at baka dumating na si Auntie Celia n'yo), the first competition we've been through (a singing contest where we cousins had to sing one by one before we could watch television; the winner gets a chocnut or something), the simple-but-filling sinangag and banana fritter over coffee. Masaya. It's where I first tasted Milo chocolate drink.

I also miss Apong (kinukudkod n'ya 'yong balat ko palagi o kaya 'yong buhok ko habang nakahiga kami), Auntie Orang (her toothless grin), Auntie Reming's puto (still the best for me), the former house of Ate Nor (before they moved to Manila which for me was a bad, bad move; I never saw them better than in Anao).

Of course, Apong's house is the only house I know which has the plentiest of fruits: santol, cherry, pineapple, guyabano, sampaloc, sineguelas, ratiles, kaimito, bayabas (no one dared eat the guava because it's rooted near the poso negro).

I also saw the changes Apong's house had been through. Still the best is the oldest model: may silong, kawayan na sahig, toilet that's connected by a small bridge. And there's my ever-favorite dulang. (I still prefer to eat there than in a formal dining table. I don't know. I felt people are more talkative, more open, funnier and informal when seated in a dulang).

I had my first nightmare in Anao. Someone was killed in Sta Inez: a man charred beyond recognition, gunned down in the head, his decapitated penis forcibly stucked in his mouth. Of course I didn't see it. But I heard people talk about it. I still remember how the dusk looked that very day: reddish, ghostly. That's the first time I realized how cruel people can become.

As all things, it too came to pass.