Homesickness hits me without warning.
We are walking along Rue de l’ Assomption in Paris, on our way back to the Maison d’Accueil de l’Assomption where we’ll be staying for the next three days. Already it is seven in the evening, yet it is as bright as 10AM.
The thought of going back to an empty room suddenly suffocates me: creaky floors, empty hallways, cold walls. Without my husband. Without my dogs. The nothingness is all too much.
Where are we eating dinner? I ask Ernestine.
We have been companions from day one, supporting each other in this little adventure. We have been each other’s shoulder to lean on for more than a month now.
I want rice, she says.
And it makes perfect sense. We have been away from Las Filipinas for so long. She’s homesick, too.
So we enter the one and only Asian restaurant in the area just a few meters from our hostel.
Bonjour, madame! the shop owner chirps behind the counter. In front of her, laid out in full splendor, may just be the best Asian food we’ve ever laid eyes on.
We greet her back and proceed to order furiously: soy chicken, sweet and sour prawns, Chinese fried rice, sautéed vegetables, and plain white rice.
Everything is weighed. Heated. Served.
On the table, before us, lay a delicious Asian feast. We may have ordered too much but we do not care.
The smell of sesame oil and Asian spices waft their way to our noses. And in the middle, rice. Fresh from the microwave oven, the steam rises from the soft, white grains, slowly, seductively, deliciously.
It is all very cinematic, like a TV commercial.
The sight alone instantly snaps me out of my melancholia.
I scoop a spoonful of shrimp-flavored gravy and with swift expertise, drizzle it on rice. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the flavors of home, before letting my mouth do the rest of the work.
And just like that, food has cured me.
*Remembering Travel, a series