Waiting for You to Come Home

Translated…

I’d hollered aloud from outside, “We’re HERE!”

Actually, this was my second time visiting, but it’d felt more like a homecoming after a long time away. I was greeted by this aroma, and, there was already, a steeped hot pot of tea on the tables, and still, after a long car ride, sweating like crazy, wouldn’t it be nice, to have a cold shower, right about now! My friend who was traveling with me frowned said, “It isn’t quite fitting!”, I’d pouted, and not paid any attention to her, “the place you’re most comfortable in, is home!”

Surely, the eldest sister of the owner handed me a towel, a handmade soap, turned on the water heater, smiled and said, “If you want to sleep her tonight, there’s a room and a bed for you two!”, great, like I said, this, IS “home”!

not my photo…

Just like how you don’t need a ton of elegance, no need for that five-star chef cookery, the meals prepared with care and heart is enticing enough: the taro so sweet, the salty taro cakes, soft on the inside, crunchy on the out! There was the Japanese singer, Mr. Lee there, enjoying the homemade salty pork soup, the elderly woman who was their neighbor brought two loofas by, the immigrated younger woman with the freshly dug up taro, and Chiao who just got out of work, the neighbor, Tsai, also came to have supper.

I’d quietly listened to people with stories meeting up here, heard that in their making fun of themselves, how they’d, let go of their separate pasts. At which time, a young man passed by, “ahhhh, that’s my son’s classmate, but he’d lived with us, for almost a decade too.”, my friend’s eldest sister introduced everybody who was there to me one by one.

not my picture…

“A decade?”, I’d opened my eyes wide, I was, really surprised. “yeah, and, our own sons went off far away. His girlfriend lived on the second floor to this house too!”, I’d looked at this easily missed homestay in the countryside, in the vacant rooms lived the younger, the elder generations, but, everybody inside this house, without any blood relations, is tighter to each other compared to a lot of the blood relatives; living together, eating together, looking out for one another, a great way for a generational exchange, and they’d even managed, to save a room, for a stranger like me. I’d slapped the dinner table and laughed, “this is, a social housing complex!”

“So long as everybody’s here, living in harmony, it’ll be tons of fun!”, the great aunt told. Yeah, every day, everybody sing, dance, work out here, even as the youngest person there is already over fifty, the band they’d put together still got that KICK. On the weekends, it’s playing drums with the elderly population, and they’d managed to donate the tips that the audience gave to a fund, to help more elderly in the population as well as the aging single mothers too. This cool autumn day, I saw on the steps, watching everybody practice their dance moves, enjoying the moment, I’d felt, that it is surely a blessing, to come here to grow old……… “When will you come back to visit again?” as we leave, everybody chimed in, the hearts were real here.

looks like home, doesn’t it???

I’d smiled, waved goodbye, and, hugged tightly, onto that bag of locally grown taro, and said shameless, “when I’m hungry and out of food!”

You know, there’s this sort of localness that calls out to you, nobody will feel lonely here, everybody can find a place to belong here. No matter how far, that house will always be bright, leading you home, waiting, for you, to come back home.

So, this, is about finding a home for oneself, this is a place, where you feel most comfortable in, that you don’t need to, put on any façade, any false pretenses, and still be accepted by the residents that lived here, it’s a great place, but, also not easy to find, but this writer had, found it………