was the fact I wanted to be taken out of the world.
To be in the world yet taken out of it.
What drew me also were the silence and solitude.
It was rather strange for a talkative, lively young teenager.
Yet on looking back, it was not really strange.
There was the incident where I looked out the window,
and saw a little path leading into the jungle.
It stirred feelings of nostalgia in me.
I imagined I took the path and walked into a beautiful grassland,
when in reality, I would be walking into a thick jungle with trees and thick foliage.
Or the time I saw a book cover of a building standing alone, in the wilderness.
There was nothing around it but that building.
Something about the silence and solitary building drew me, stirred hauntings in my soul.
I could never really pinpoint why, this hauntings in my soul.
This longing, yearning for silence, solitude, for something undefined.
Later, I trace it to my mystical sense.
Sensing something without being aware of it, even at that young age.
It was literally the case of being taken out of this world.
The environment at the monastery was such,
I was not able to feel homesick and did not feel homesick.
For months, I was not even able to think of my family.
It was as though I was living in another reality.
A reality with an orange hue color.
Akin to being on another planet.
Night time however was different.
Coming from a large family, I had never slept alone.
It was terrifying having to sleep alone.
Every night, I would sprinkle the Holy Water liberally,
all over and under the bed, to frighten devils away.
That done, I huddled under a thin sheet, pulled to my eyes,
before doing that, I would expel all air from my lungs.
I have no idea why I did that.
I would sleep, body slightly turned toward the door,
eyes watching the door warily,
Just in case a ghost or devil would enter in.
Forgetting the fact, spirits do not need doors to enter rooms.
And that is me.
A combination of innate wisdom and some foolishness.
At home, it was a different story.
My parents missed me.
My father especially missed me.
I was one of the few children who went out of my way to talk to him.
Most of his older children were too terrified of him to talk to him.
Whenever he came home from work,
I would make a drink for him from fresh lemons from a tree he planted.
It was polite stilted communication but still,
some form of communication.
Younger, his temper was so atrocious,
he terrorized his own children.
Trigger his anger and he would go into rage,
terrifying to behold.
My youngest sister cried every day,
during the time I would return from attending mass,
with sweets for them.
"Why did you let her go to Carmel," the six year old cried.
To offset that, my mother bought a bag of sweets,
every day at that hour, my mother would give some to her.
I was blissfully oblivious of all that.
Totally involved with my new life as the youngest addition to the monastery.
And totally taken with the nuns, my newfound family.
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