Skylight

I grew up in Cebu Avenue where all the bedrooms connect to the study room. The study room is a big room with eight built-in desks plus two add-on ones. (You see when the second floor was built in the early 70's, there were only eight of us. J and Z were still twinkles in Father’s and Mother’s eyes.) Each of us has an assigned desk location as identified by the prominent black and white blow up photo displayed on the wall. (See June 2009 blogpost entitled “Gallery -- Part 10”).

We spent many a day and night in the study room mainly because the room is so big that the possibilities for activities seemed endless. All of us spent a lot of time studying and reading in that room. There were fluorescent light on each of our desks and imaginary lines marking the border from one’s territory to another. The big world map hung on one wall. Old family pictures and other blow-up black-and-white photos are displayed. Father’s and Mother’s photos hang on top of the pigeon holes where we used to put individual mail and sundry. We used to have yellow chairs with caster balls that we’d spin around till we got dizzy.

Sister Deer and I did our cartwheels, bridges and splits in the middle of the study room, in between the two sets of desks. The study room and the living room were the usual venues of our Christmas programs. On New Year’s Eve, we would turn the aircon on in the study room and sleep on the floor together, away from the smoke and dust of the outside world. We played Pictionary on the black board, completed puzzles on the floor, put marks on the walls to document our height, and lots more. GI even practiced how to ride a bike in the study room.

In the middle of one set of desks at the study room, on top of what was used to be Mindy’s desk was the altar. (This means that Mindy didn’t have the benefit of additional shelves on top of her desk because that is where altar and the ‘prayer oven’ are located. In hind sight, poor Mindy probably didn’t have a say on which desk she’d have because she was the youngest when the desk assignments were decided.) For as long as I can remember, Father and Mother would pray the rosary in front of the altar at night. There was a time in our lives when everyone gathered for the family rosary. We would ring the bell (so all may know) and everyone would have to drop what they were doing and proceed to the study room so that we could pray our rosary together. Father and Mother would be seated on chairs in front of the altar while the children would be kneeling on the carpet.

I suppose Father and Mother really planned for this room to be special. And truly, it is a special room. However, aside from the many tables, the pictures, the pigeon holes, the altar and the big space, there is something often left unnoticed that is special in that room.

It has a skylight.

I don’t know of many houses in Manila that have skylights. In fact, the skylight in the study room is the only one I recall seeing in the few houses I happened to visit in the Philippines.

The study room has that extra natural light during the day because of the skylight and I think that is wonderful.

When we moved to MacGyver’s brother’s place near Kings Road, we occupied two of the four bedrooms. We displaced the MacGyver’s nephews from their rooms. RD, MyGirl and I got the room of the oldest boy, while MacGyver and GI stayed in the younger boys’ room. The house had three toilet and baths - one downstairs, two upstairs. Aside from one in the master's bedroom upstairs, there was a common one upstairs. We were assigned the toilet and main bathroom upstairs.

On the first morning after we arrived, I was half asleep when I headed for the bathroom. I went inside and it was quite bright. I tried to switch off the light only to realize that the light was not coming from a bulb but was coming from the ceiling. It was the sunlight coming through the skylight in the bathroom.

Extraordinary!

I went to the toilet (which was a separate room from the upstairs bathroom) and discovered that there was a skylight there, too.

Amazing!

[I didn’t have the privilege of going to the bathroom in the master’s bedroom so I can only assume that there was a skylight there too.]

We stayed at my brother-in-law’s place for a total of six weeks. We moved to Northern Views on the 14^th of November 2009. We had signed the lease contract on Tuesday, 10 November, just in time for the arrival of our shipping boxes from Manila that coming Thursday. While the kids were in school, MacGyver and I unpacked the necessary boxes and tried to get everything in place in time for us to move in by the end of the week.

On our first morning there, I noticed that beside the light at the stairs here at Northern Views was - you guessed it - a skylight!

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This story has been sitting in my drafts folder for ages. If not for Z's email about the time she and Mother went off to watch Romeo and Bernadette, this would probably still be a draft.

Who Left the Lights On? -- 08 Feb 2010

Ma knocked on my door at 2 p.m. so we could catch the matinee.

"Turn off the lights," Mama reminded me before leaving.

I hadn't left any lights on, but turned to the bathroom anyway to check.

"Ma, that's daylight."