I woke up very early this morning, and in our darkened room, I was thinking about a mosquito net (the picture below is similar to what we had growing up). It’s been a year since I last sat down to write anything, and I don’t know why this memory came back first — except that maybe, when you’re trying to remember how to do something, you go back to the beginning.
I didn’t have a dedicated room growing up. Instead, I had a corner on the open second floor, and each night followed the same routine: unrolling the banig, a handwoven Filipino mat mainly used for sleeping, pulling the mosquito net over the three of us, and settling into our spots — me at one end, my middle sister in the middle, and my other sister at the far end. This same setup repeated every night, reflecting our birth order.
We talked before we slept. I don’t remember most of what we said — the ordinary chatter of three girls winding down — but I remember it happened every night under that net. And when one of us woke from a nightmare, it was always our middle sister who noticed first and reached over to gently shake us out of whatever had scared us.
Then came the sounds from all around: a lizard ticking somewhere in the darkness, cats swiftly running and meowing across the tin roof overhead, then disappearing. The net, acting as a barrier against pesky mosquitoes, trapped the heat, just as Manila nights demand. The hard floor pressed against our bodies and the tight space that offered little room.
I wasn’t aware we were struggling financially, nor did I realize that lacking a room or a bed meant we were poor. No one ever mentioned it, and those nights never felt lacking. I had two sisters nearby, a mosquito net, and a place to sleep. We were genuinely happy — not because of our circumstances, just because.
I didn’t get a room of my own until I got married. Even now, decades later, on a different continent, thousand of miles away from the Manila, in a bed I can adjust instead of a banig — I still share a room. My husband is beside me instead of my sisters. There’s no net, no tin roof, no lizard ticking in the dark, and with central air conditioning. Everything about the room has changed, but one thing remains – I am still with someone I love, and that has always been the only measurement that ever told me anything true in life.
I hadn’t written for a year until this morning, when I woke up thinking about a mosquito net. Perhaps that’s how it is — you don’t reconnect with writing or anything else through major moments. Instead, it’s in a small, unexpected memory that you find your way back.
So I’ll ask you what I asked myself: What’s the room you grew up in — the real one, or the one that wasn’t really a room at all? Who was in it with you? What did it teach you about what you had, or didn’t have, without you knowing it at the time?
I’d love to hear it. Tell me in the comments or sit with the question for a while. Either way, thank you for reading — it’s good to be back.
Vian Wheatley 