Buhay Bahay: my Lagalag Story

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My LAGALAG pages are finally finished after three weeks, two weeks behind schedule. I could draw up an entire post for the excuses, but let's just say after weeks of preparation before the notebook arrived, shooting everything that we own, hoarding extra paper stocks, refilling my two printers, and reorganizing my domestic schedule, I wrapped it up after a week and a half, and ready to ship the notebook to the next destination.

Then I discovered I cannot close the notebook literally because I should've pasted the mini-album as far as possible from the notebook's gutter. I drowned my frustration by watching a movie, slept the rest of the day away, and woke up after midnight to get back to work.

So I did a major overhaul that involved taking down the material for the entire two spreads and adding overleaf pages to cover up for the gross oversight.

And well, the not-so-minor adjustment of getting rid of the page where I stuck the photos. I also printed all photos again, because what was originally a mosaic of items in a 4x6 grid became a contiguous printout to make up for the absent paper base.

It may not look like it, but this has become the most complicated hands-on project (as opposed to being computer "generated") I've done in the last two years. I hope the long wait was worth it, and my audience (my fellow Lagalag contributors) will enjoy browsing as much as I did creating them.


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View the Flickr set and the page notes here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/normanbolditalic/sets/72157600244348297/

This is the full text:

Half a year ago, we arrived in America.

Dead-tired after the 16-hour plane flight but full of anticipation, we slept thru day one with our messed-up body clocks. The next few weeks saw us settle down in our bare apartment, familiarizing with the neighborhood, and making arrangements for the kids’ continuing education. We struggled with the constant currency conversion, paid our first taxes, and made new friends.

There were expectations, of course. We would go out more, visit museums and galleries, spend weekends at parks, reach out to the Pinoy community, and take more pictures.

But mostly, there were surprises.

Winter didn't seem this cold on TV. We didn't have a car yet, and the bus lines were at least six blocks out. There's nothing to shoot pictures of but white emptiness: dead trees, and obliterated landscapes. We were practically shut out of the world; from after-school activities, community gatherings and Sunday mass. Even going to the grocery--a mere 5 blocks away-was a one-hour one-way taxi-waiting ordeal.

And because we migrated with only a few clothes in our luggage in favor of the desktop PC, some books and a lot of my paper files, the house was cold, empty and quiet.

Far from the adventure we all anticipated, our first weeks were defined by the objects of everyday that make a new home warm, useful, and alive.

These objects comprise the map of our daily lives, well, at least for now. We bought some of them, some were given by friends, and many were salvaged from yard sales around the 'hood.

But all of these objects help us discover that the collective experience of making this house a home is greater than the sum of its parts.

We shall remember the stories surrounding these sundry objects, the shopping and salvaging experiences. They will go down our book of days as my family’s attempt to start a brave new life.

Perhaps the things we own end up owning us. And yet, like the ephemeral nature of these objects, I know the days ahead will come and go. There will be new experiences, and different ways of dealing with this new life. And good or bad, the days will become stories, entering our heart’s doors and kept safe in the cabinets of our minds.