JUST LIKE HOME

The city where I was born is a famous resort destination in the Philippines. It was built by Americans whose names are memorialized everywhere: Burnham Park, Kennon Road, Camp John Hay, Melvin Jones Grandstand, Governor Pack Road. The city of Baguio was meant as a rest and recreation (or R & R) area for American military personnel, but because of its year-long mild weather, it became a place everyone could enjoy, hence its designation as the Summer Capital of the Philippines.

I remember when I first came to Seattle, a mother with two kids in tow, not young or old by anyone's standards. I didn't know what to expect but I had that surreal feeling of "coming home". It could have been because my children and I were finally going to be reunited with my husband after many years. In my heart, additionally, I knew it was because Seattle was just like Baguio in many ways. Weather-wise the two could be described as cool, if not rainy. In temperament, they are absolute twins: green urban areas with a stubborn suburban feel, where "downtown" is never "uptown", filled with places and delicious memories from childhood. And the people? You couldn't find a larger concentration of the nicest, wisest, most loving ones on earth, as they are there and here. Maybe that's why as immigrants my family and I did not have any culture shock at all, but seamlessly and immediately blended into life just as our new-found friends welcomed us as their own.

Everyone knows it's hard to describe home. And really, home is not something bound by geographical territories or tied to certain people and races and points in time. It's not just a place of residence or abode, just as a house encloses physically, basically, necessarily.

Like a well-worn cliche, home is where the heart is. I miss my hometown terribly, but I am content knowing that although my heart yearns, and longs, to go back, I don't need to go because I never really left. Baguio may be a million miles away, but to me Baguio is here in Seattle, endlessly cherished and nurtured by my dreams.

I am so happy to be home.