Carpenter Islao built the home that I grew up in. It was an anomaly of a squarish chalet with a galvanized roof that sloped toward its entire frontage. No need for guterr, he alleged.
Indeed, on rainy days the water slid down - a delightful outdoor shower for us kids and a natural water irrigation besides for the mayana bushes below.
It was a squattish mimic of a stilt house raised on posts about five feet up from the ground. Protekshun for flood. He had a rational explanation for everything when he was sober. Genius.
For most of the year, this space underneath became our kingdom for many hours of play. Along one side was a wood platform on which my brothers and I would unroll woven mats for an afternoon siesta. A choice corner was our indubitable supply of fighter spiders and millipiglets, captives in an empty match box until the next bug tournament. We scratched hopscotch lines with sticks in the dirt and dug holes for a game of marble djolens. We concocted potions from blackish alagao berries.
Or we would climb onto the rattan hammock.
From this Throne of Glory, we would swing boisterously while singing in our thin voices a maudlin song that was popular at the time.
Or with sweet raggedness, we would belt out:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
Sing for the night is o'er.
Hosanna, in the highest
Hosanna forevermore!
In retrospect, I now understand my kinship with this place.
It was my guilty secret. In this private paradise I could relish the stupefying refusal of time to pass. It was as if I was caught in a never-ending multiplication of moments that was preposterously glorious. Here I could hide out for a very long time, and simply savor being on the brink of eternity and never get off.
It was my New Jerusalem.
My Holy Affair beside the tideless sea of my mind.
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