Moving back to the place we grew up from, sure brings back a WHOLE lot of memories, translated…
We all know, that we only have, ONE life to live, but recently, I found, that my life had, begun, anew.
I’d moved from my over twenty years’ home in the U.S. to Taiwan two years ago, and reconnected with my classmates in the university years, the high school years, I’d even gotten reconnected with my middle school class too, as the group of us, former classmates met up, we’d started chitter-chattering incessantly, everybody seemed to forgotten her/his own age, like, we’d, returned, back to those younger days of ours. Everything that’s happened, came back to life again, some of the classmates had amazing memories, and, recalled the smallest details of our days in school; most of the classmates hadn’t changed all that much, there were a couple that I couldn’t recognize at the start, but, as I’d looked upon them, they’d become, more, and more familiar to me, and, we all returned, to those days of younger innocence again.
Reason why I’d come back was to be with my mother. The home we grew up in, in the retired army villages, because nobody lives there anymore, the weeds are all too tall, the walls, torn and broken down. And, after twenty years’ worth of expecting, hoping, the reconstruction of the military housing complex finally got done. The aunt who lived in the same village made fun, “The woman kept guard over that kiln for eighteen years, we’d squatted at this barely livable old station for twenty years now.” Unfortunately, my father passed away five years ago, he’d not gotten the chance, to live in the newly remodeled home, but, my mother finally, waited for this day, and, I was, lucky enough, to make it back here, and, moved with my mother, into this new old home of ours.
At the conferences before the handing over of the properties, I saw my childhood playmates, although already white in the hair, no longer looked like they once had, but, it’d, brought back so memories of my childhood years. The older residence needed to be returned, although they were all very, excited about moving into this brand new apartment complex, but, we’d all still felt, saddened and nostalgic; it was, a sort of a final farewell to our childhoods, the gratitude we felt, toward our parents, raising the four of us up, this unwillingness, that we’re all, living this place called home behind completely. But, these childhood memories, didn’t get buried with the deconstruction of our old homes, but instead, they were, brought back to life again, as the old friends started socializing, living next to each other in the newer communities.
Moving into the new community, my mother told me, to contact ALL our old neighbors from the former servicemen retirement villages, and paid my visits to them one by one. As we were younger, my father was the highest ranked officer, and naturally, we’d all become, children of higher status, everybody loved us so, and naturally, this, was because of how honest, how righteous my father had been, and how he’d looked after his subordinates. The few of his generations are now, hard of hearing, immobilized, some were overcome with illness, but, as they’d started talking about the old days, it’s like, they’d gotten a shot of something that brought them back to life again, their eyes started glowing, and smiles started, creeping up their faces then.
I’d worked hard, to reconstruct these elderly’s younger looks, thinking, I am now, older, than they all were back then! But, in the eyes of all the uncles and aunts, I’m still that kid, that hid behind my mother’s skirt, with my eyes wide open, with the pigtails on my head, I suppose?
Lu-Wen, who grew up in the same retirement army village, was a few years my junior, and in recent years, he became, outspoken, of preserving the culture in the army retirement villages. He and his son started a culture and creative agency, set up our village as a cultural site in Beitou and had guided tours every now and then, hoping, to keep our homes as they had always been. Once as I was collecting the things in our front yard, I saw him, leading a tour group, and I’d heard him, embellishing things about our old home, he’d even, included my father as a part of his introductions to the tourists. Turns out, that this old home of mine, had become one of the focal points of the cultures of army retirement villages now. Other than being moved, I’d hoped, that his plans to preserve this home of ours worked out, and I’d hoped, that one day in the future, I will be able to, give something back to this place I was raised in. And maybe in the future, I may even, have to PAY a fee, to enter into the home I grew up in!
In the roads of life, I’d had, a bumpy ride, circled around the globe, returned, back to the place I was born in, reminiscing over my younger days, it’d, given me a brand new life.
this, is what one looks like, photo from online…
So, this, is how returning home to visit, to live is for this individual, and I’m sure, that a LOT of people who’d been away from the place they were born in can relate to, because, there’s just, that place from long ago, we felt that we’d belonged, and, even after so many years, and as things had become, modernized, altered, and changed, what stayed the same was, our closeness, our connection, to this place called our “home”…