will add a photo of it soon
pilapil generally refers to dikes in between two bodies of water. where i lived, behind the houses is an expanse of ponds divided by pilapil(s) that intersects forming a collection of ponds which also acts as narrow roads. when thinking about childhood, one of the few image that comes to mind is a grid that constitutes these land that endures beyond erosion and monsoons. with it, i am also reminded by the sun-soaked afternoons, wandering around these dirt roads, knocking every pampas grass as we move along, leaving a trail of white clouds behind which floats somewhere; emrging from these summers is a case of mild sun burn, hives and grass-cuts on our legs from the patches of grass growing on the pilapils side.
iron and wine catches the essence of this nostalgia in his song "passing afternoon", in the perfectly chosen album title, "our endless, numbered days" (which i hope to learn how to put here ahha). "there are things that drift away/ like our endless numbered days", it goes.
in the introduction of Noreen Masud's memoir, "A Flat Place", she recounts that beyond the city of Lahore, an empty field that lies flatly and quietly beckons her to just look, and which she derives a quiet solitude in the busy-ness of her life in the city as a child. she looks back in her mind's eye, "later... i could take myself back to the fields, and live there in the cool quiet by myself".
now living in a city myself, i come back to these muddy path in my mind. i never saw the end of these trails, i can only see that its end exists elsewhere as is true for most things in a "dead-end" town - which, as a kid fascinated me and at times as an adult entrapped me. i only saw birds going in its direction at dawn and kids returning to their home at a very few big patches of land for houses or kubos at one of its intersections, which will make me wonder, flattered by the narrowness of my thinking, that what i considered a difficult place to live can be home to others.