The Walls We Built

I was reluctant to start on Tania De Rozario's 'And The Walls Come Crumbling Down' (2016) because it seemed to belong to the genre I'm not interested in. It's supposed to be part memoir and part self-rumination.

The book's summary tells us that it "parallels three events in the author's life: the physical deterioration of the house in which she lives, the emotional disintegration of a couple once in love, and the unearthing of childhood ghosts that can't seem to be cast off." It's a thin book. Once I got past the first ten pages, I was pleasantly surprised by how well-paced it is. It isn't as whiny as feared. It's fairly retrospective, and sombre.

The protagonist spent six years in search of herself, moving from house to house, living alone, with a partner, and then alone again. The houses are real, but are also a metaphor. She searches for what her life is meant to be, while remembering her beloved grandmother, and not particularly resolving her bitterness with her mother.

Is this karma? Me leaving my family and then having my family leave me? 

Coming home to someone is many things. It is a literal action, an abstract idea, a physical feeling. It is more than the sound of the key turning in the door and the voice that calls from the porch. It is a choice, a promise, a declaration. it is a return, not as person to a place, but as oneself to another. It is one person saying to another person: You are the one I choose.