You Can Go Home Again

In September 2003, I finally found my way home again. I had left Manila thirty years before, a few weeks before marital law was declared on September 21, 1972. Shortly before my departure a fire destroyed the Manila International Airport, and I had to ride a bus to a makeshift terminal to catch my flight. My parents could not ride with me, so I waved at them from the back of the bus, their heads finally disappearing from view as the bus navigated the potholes of Manila’s streets. I looked hard at the palm trees, shacks, and people, and said my farewell to a country that had shaped my soul and to a people that had wounded my heart. I was twenty-one years old and felt that my life was ahead of me, but I knew, too, that a part of my life was ending.