On Friday, my husband and I went to the Chinese doctor on Ongpin Street.  After our check-up and a quick lunch of sweet and sour fish fillet and pancit bihon, we drove down Recto Avenue, turned left on Mendiola, through Legarda to Ramon Magsaysay Boulevard.  We then turned right to get on N. Domingo Street and right on Blumentritt Street.  We turned left on F. Manalo Street, turned right on P. Guevarra and then on to Mariano Marcos.  From there, we took Hoover Street thinking to exit through Gomezville Street and cross right on Shaw Boulevard into Nueve de Febrero Street where I lived when I was a little girl.

Alas, there was a “no entry” sign so we backtracked and instead, we turned right on Lawson Street which was perpendicular to Shaw Boulevard.  We turned left on Shaw Boulevard and again encountered a “no entry” sign so we turned right on Acacia Lane (it was now a one way street).  We turned left on a street that was lined with 12-foot concrete walls painted bright yellow.  That street was not there when I was a little girl.  It wasn’t there when I left Mandaluyong in 1994 either.  That street ended at the bend on Nueve de Febrero.  But when we got to the corner, I blinked a few times trying to reconcile the picture in my head with the reality that was in front of me.

My husband turned toward me and said, “Where to?”  I had lived there all my life but I felt like Rip Van Winkle, like I had awakened from a hundred-year slumber and did not recognize the streets anymore.

We turned left on Nueve and ended back on Shaw so we went back to Acacia Lane and when we ended up on the same corner junction of Nueve de Febrero, we went straight.  A traffic enforcer hailed us.  We were supposed to turn left on Nueve de Febrero and turn right on Shaw Boulevard and right again on E. Dela Paz Street (which was now named Jaime Cardinal Sin Street) to get on Nueve de Febrero.  Luckily, the traffic enforcer saw the protocol plate on our car and waved us through.

I was so sad to see the street of my childhood so altered.  I felt like I had lost something vital to my existence—and I did—I lost the locus, the situs of my childhood memories.  When I tell stories of my childhood, the street is still vivid to me but it is vivid only in my mind.  The Nueve de Febrero I knew is no longer the Nueve de Febrero that’s there.

My childhood home is gone.  The corner of the lot where our apartment was built abutted Shaw Boulevard. It was expropriated to widen Nueve de Febrero and put in a right-turn lane to Shaw Boulevard.  The owner of the apartments sold the remainder of the lot and a Ministop was built on it at first.  A showroom is now built there. When I got married and lived in Quezon City, I still took the same route through Araneta Avenue, through San Juan and Acacia Lane to get to the Mandaluyong City Hall for my hearings.  After my hearings, I would drive to Boni Avenue, cross the Pioneer tunnel and get out on Sheridan Street to my mom’s house in Bo. Capitoly0, Pasig  for lunch.

Nueve de Febrero Street used to be a two-lane asphalt road with shoulders on either side that were as wide as the road itself.  Pedestrians walked on those shoulders.  The Libertad-Kalentong jeepneys swerved to the right to take on and let off passengers.  There was an open drainage canal that would swell with water when it rained really hard.  My brother, who later became a medical doctor, caught tadpoles in that open drainage canal (much to my mother’s disgust).  At night, I would fall asleep to the gurgling water and it was the nearest thing to a brook and just as relaxing.  The Baptist Seminary, a three-storey building, had ivy growing on its wall which housed a whole flock of maya (Asian sparrow).  These busy birds woke me up in the mornings.

I loved that street—it was home. My father taught me how to cross the street on Nueve de Febrero.  My dad held my hand, one day, and walked me over to the edge of Nueve de Febrero.  He told me to stop, look both ways, and listen for the sound of oncoming cars before I crossed the street.  When we got to the other side, he told me the same thing and we crossed the same street.  We stood there and he asked me, “Do you understand?” I nodded.

He let go of my hand, dug into his wallet and gave me one peso.  He then told me to cross the street and buy anything I wanted from Fernando’s grocery. I looked at him, panicked.  He looked at me and said, “You go do it like I showed you.  I will be here when you get back.”

I took a deep breath, looked both ways, listening for oncoming traffic and crossed without mishap.  When I got to the other side, I turned and my dad was there, waving at me.  I skipped all the way to Fernando’s grocery store and bought candy.  When I got back, my Dad was still standing there, waiting for me.  I crossed again.  I was only 4, maybe 5.

When I learned how to cross the street, my mother made me go to the store each time she needed something.  I hated going to Fernando’s grocery store all by myself.  The baggers would tease me “Eto na si Miss English-speaking.”  They’d ask me if I already had a boyfriend. (I was just five!) The cashier would usually come to my rescue and say, “Pulis ang Daddy niyan, lagot kayo.”  It was Martial Law.

I wore red sneakers that day I first crossed Nueve de Febrero Street all by myself.  It was a canvas pair of sneakers that had the words “left” and “right” printed near the toes.  On either side, the sneakers had the words “stop” , “look” , and “listen”.  I picked them from the many shoes on the shelves at a stall at the Sta. Mesa market because they were red.  I knew my dad approved of my choice because he pointed to the words and said, “Can you read them?”  I looked at the words and guessed, “Stop?” I asked and he nodded.  “Go!” I was on a roll. “Left” was easy but I stumbled at “Right.”  Those words were the reason why my Dad thought it was time to teach me how to cross the street; because I already knew how to tell my left from my right.  I was only 4, maybe 5.

My Dad was no longer a police investigator then.  He had passed the bar. Our living room was his law office.  He didn’t have very many clients yet and at dusk, my Dad often sat near the gate. I would sit next to him and ask him what he was doing.  He was “people-watching,” he said.  “Why?” I asked him. “I want to learn about human nature, anak.” “What’s human nature, Dad?”  He tried his best to answer my questions.  Sometimes he would wave me away because “I’m thinking, anak.”  So I sat there next to him and I wondered what he was thinking.  I was only four, maybe five.

There were days when as my dad sat at our gate, a jeepney driver would pull over right in front of him.  The jeepney driver would call my Dad over and they would chat.  He’d motion for my Dad to get on the passenger seat next to him and I tagged along. We’d end up at the jeepney terminal right next to JRC.  We’d buy peanuts there and he’d chat for a while with the traffic cops at the corner where the Banco Filipino used to be.  We’d ride a Crossing jeepney to get back home.  My dad would count out change and hand it to me.  He would then give me the change and tell me to give it to the driver and tell him where we were getting off. I looked at him, puzzled.  “Where do we live, anak?”  “507-E Nueve de Febrero Street, Mandaluyong, Rizal.”  “Tell him that.”  So I would hold on with one hand to the bar near the ceiling of the jeep, holding the coins tightly in my other hand and tell the driver “Bayad po, isa, sa Nueve.” It cost P0.20 from JRC to my house on Nueve de Febrero. That was the minimum fare.

My childhood memories are linked inextricably with our slow quiet street, and our slow quiet life.  That Nueve de Febrero of my childhood has changed just as I have changed. It doesn’t have to be all sad, though, I left Nueve de Febrero for a different adventure and I have made memories elsewhere. Nueve de Febrero Street will always be the street of my childhood, although now, it is alive only in my mind.