Another day.
“Mmm-hmmm hmmm hmm.”
Looking for snails in the square holes of concrete blocks in their front yard garden is a little girl 6 years of age. She is squatted and peering at every concrete block surrounding the side of their house. Today is her lucky day. Sometimes, she looks for snails, plucks them out of their reverie, sets them on the glass of the table, and watches them crawl. Their garden did not have rich, beautiful grass; no, the only part without concrete is the small garden surrounding the house's front.
She lays down a flattened balikbayan box that still smelled like vanilla and coconut under the table and laid down to watch the snail crawl on the glass.
It is a fun thing to do in the mornings and late afternoons when it is not too hot and not too cold.
“Time to take a bath!” The housekeeper-her nanny calls.
She does not move and stares at the crawling snail, who is already a few inches away from its starting point. She then shifts her gaze at the clouds, forming shapes naturally from something very magical up above.
In a few hours, she will have to go to school and stare blankly at her teacher again. Schools do not make sense to her. It is just a place where more older people tell her what to do, what not to do, and what she should know. She likes exploring the house, going through things, watching television, and sleeping with the air conditioner on.
A scolding face pops in through the glass of the table—what a view.
“Don’t stay here. Your face will get tanned. Get up. You have to go take a bath now.”
Her nanny likes to prepare her early because she keeps getting distracted. Also, her nanny enjoys styling her long black hair. She likes it when they style her hair because it makes her sleepy.
“I don’t want to.” She says nonchalantly when she shifts her gaze back to the snail circling its way.
“You have to. Your dad will get mad.”
She doesn’t get the chance to reply because she is getting pulled along with the flattened box out of the table's underside. She sits up, turns her head to the side, and rests her hands flat on her sides.
“I really should, should I?”
She heaves a sigh, defeated.
“Come on, let’s go. Let’s use the shampoo your mom bought. It smells good, I promise.”
They reach the bathroom, and her nanny helps her step in.
“Can I shampoo my hair twice?” She couldn’t help but ask because she loves the soft flowery smell so much.
“No. You’ll get bald.”
Defeated once again.
While taking a bath, she thinks, ‘tomorrow she’ll be going through the lowest shelf beside her father’s tall shelf. She’s going to read with the snail. When she reads, sometimes she writes it down. She’s not sure she’s writing it right, though. But I can tell that she never regretted going through her father’s shelf. I am her. The kid who constantly daydreamed and imagined. Anyone can write anything. Writing saved her memories. It saved her, too.
