I am comparing gravity with belonging. Both phenomena observably exist [... b]ut neither is understood. We know the force of gravity, but not its origins; and to explain why we become attached to our birthplaces we pretend that we are trees and speak of roots. Look under your feet. You will not find gnarled growth sprouting through the soles. Roots, I sometime think, are a conservative myth, designed to keep us in our places. [...]
What is the best thing about migrant people and seceded nations? I think it is their hopefulness [...]. And what is the worst thing? It is the emptiness of one's luggage. I'm speaking of nvisible suitcases, not the physical, perhaps cardboard, variety containing a few meaning-drained mementoes: we have come unstuck from more than land. We have floated upwards from history, from memory, from Time. [...]
As for me: I, too, like all migrants, am a fantasist. I build imaginary countries and try to impose them on the ones that exist. I, too, face the problem of history: what to retain, what to dump, how to hold on to what memory insists on relinquishing, how to deal with change. And to come back to the 'roots' idea, I should say that I haven't managed to shake myself free of it completely. Sometimes I do see myself as a tree, even, rather grandly, as the ash Yggdrasil, the mythical world-tree of Norse legend."
So how to explain the sense of not-belonging to someone who's never experienced it?
Today I move into a new house in a new town: Urubamba and being ripped off by my landlady as a gringa charged 50% more than the proper price.
2 comments:
This problem of roots is an ancient one and as Rushdie says not so clear. Nomadic populations move around all their lives, do they feel uprooted all the same or find their roots in light air and big skies? Are roots in places or souls? In Anatevka or in traditions?
When I was in my teens I was kind of obsessed by roots or better by not feeling them; I think I could still find something written about it in my diary as a girl. I thought I missed something because I didn't feel I belonged anywhere. When I began to move around I felt finally free and thought I didn't need any roots; it was the time when every young one talked about being a "citizen of the world". I found my roots in what I call the places of the soul, places which meant a lot to me and where I was happy and felt invincible. I thought that the fact of not having roots was an advantage which could allow me to go anywhere and feel at home. But of course I moved very little in my life in comparison with you. My mother was very upset by moving around during her youth following a father in the army; M Claudia who moved from Padoa to Turin in her teens says people who don't move can't understand what it really means and how devastating it can be, especially in terms of relationships (I can say little about it as my relationship have always been very few; I remember writing in my diary that I felt like one of Leibnitz' monads...). M Claudia is always concerned about you and about how disrupting your moving around all the time can be . She told me several times that she thinks of you and your experience and can understand how you may feel, unlike people like me who never moved; she also told me she's not sure I did the right thing scattering you all around the world. I really don't know. Perfection is not of this world and man is incomplete wherever he may find himself to live. There will be always something missing, apart from the few magic moments when you feel part of the universe. It's the essence of manhood (or womanhood...), since when Adam and Eve were banished from Eden.
I understand where you are coming from, Erica. I have friends who have never moved from the island they grew up on ... or even traveled much. They seem comfortable, but tell me that they long for new experiences. Those like us who have actually lived in different places come to feel like we can never truly fit in any of these places.... It starts to leave one feeling uneasy after being in one place for "too long". As for relationships, with the world as it is now I feel that I am able to stay connected with so many more people and feel close to them... even when they are far away. I think the effect of moving also has a lot to do with one's basic personality. I do not miss people knowing everything about me and my daily habits. It also allows for second chances and makes labeling more difficult.
My mom misses us and especially the girls, but she realizes that I would not have been happy staying put.
Wherever you go... know that you can always "park here and refuel" whever our here happens to be at the time!
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