It had been a year since I last visited home. I looked out the half-closed window from my aisle seat. I know it’s Iloilo when it’s green out of that window. I missed the ease and comfort of my hometown, but most of all, I missed the sound of Hiligaynon.
That was October 2020. I’d been stuck in Manila since the lockdown began at the start of the year. I looked out the window once more, just to make sure it was real. Yup, those rice fields are unmistakable—not Metro Manila. I was finally above Iloilo airspace. My pandemic retreat.
Sometimes I think about gravity. The bigger the mass of a thing, the stronger its force of gravity. The more weight we place on some thing or place, the stronger the pull towards it.
I put a lot of weight on my hometown. The roads are wide enough, the language sings, the pace breathes. I think of my birthplace and I feel a true sense of hope. After all, it was where my earliest ambitions were formed. Everything seemed possible there. Everything beyond it seemed within reach.
I looked out that window and it was the same hope from when I was a child. Fresh, well-seasoned hope. I used to believe that home was always the people, that location was only secondary, that it’s the people that make you feel at home. But sometimes, certain places can feel like characters themselves. Sometimes, home is a place.
I lived away from home for most of my adult life. Seven years in Manila right after high school. Seven years of school, work, relationships, change of plans, and broken promises. I’d say, I became an adult in the “gates of hell.”
Manil-ugh. The traffic, the smog, the crowd, the traffic. I fear, a stubborn part of me will always remain here. No matter how healthy and refreshing a new settlement may be, a part of me will always long for my adult birthplace.
Halfway through 2022, I returned to Manila for the first time since my retreat to Iloilo. The moment our plane landed in NAIA, I felt the part of my soul that remained here reattach itself to my body. “I hate this place,” I thought to myself. The next moment: “It’s good to be back.”
It would seem that the longer I’m away from a place, the homier it feels to be back in it. I missed the car honks, the truck breaks screeching, the incessant rumbling—the perfect white noise to creativity. The city speaks its own language; it takes some time to acclimatize but eventually, I would understand its messages.
I’m not alone in this feeling. In one of his latest vlogs, YouTuber Casey Neistat documented his family moving from LA back to New York. Although LA is closer to his family, and he wasn’t born in New York, it was in New York that he made himself. He became who he is today in New York. It is therefore where he feels most at home.
He revisited the experience in a podcast episode with Rich Roll. “When you step out in New York City, a story smacks you in the face,” they both agree. I think the city beats any chill town in this regard. Metro Manila is a similar case.
I recall a conversation I had with my own brother many years ago, before I ever moved to Manila. At the time, he had already spent two years here for college. We talked about where we would eventually settle down as adults. He said that Manila might be his place for work, while Iloilo would be the place for rest and vacation. Two homes, each with its own purpose.
Sometimes I feel like Voldemort splitting his soul into pieces to create horcruxes—except for me, it’s homes. And although no killing is involved in making these homes, it does come with the occasional losing touch with people. But it also means making new connections and starting new relationships. This weighs heavier and heavier on me as I’m on the verge of building another home over the next few years, this time in Beijing for study.
A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with my friend Jamie over breakfast. We were in Boracay for a friend’s wedding weekend and that was our last day in the island. I asked her if she ever experiences sepanx—that’s separation anxiety in case you didn’t know—from a place. She said she rarely did. Maybe she was simply detached to things and places. “Good for you,” I thought to myself.
As for me, I was sepanx-ing all the over the place. It had been such a beautiful couple of days. Surely, collective core memories were formed over that weekend.
I have this habit of attaching myself to places, forming my pockets of home within them. No need to tell me to “make myself at home.” It’s my default mode. A symptom of sentimentality, I suppose.
I used to think home is the people. In many cases, it can be. But sometimes, home is the place where a version of you was created—or found. In some ways, the real measure of a home lies in the memories created in it, or how much we long for it when we’re away. Perhaps home is where gravity is strongest.