06 February, 2013

A stranger, anyway

         Reflecting on my history, it’s not so long ago that I wrote in my notebook that ‘I’ve been growing like a transplanted plant’. I want to come back to this idea now.
        My seed was sown, and germinated in one land. Then, uprooted twice. And then, taken back to the original soil. But it was not the same as before, it couldn’t be...
        So one day, feeling trapped and isolated, a stranger in my homeland, I decided to go on my own, to walk away. And I put myself into another totally different place. I might be more poetical, continue with the metaphor and say that I needed different water, different air, different nutrients… But this is not going to work here. So I should better say that what I just needed was to take the sensation of feeling the owner of my own freedom.
      I’ve written ‘totally different’. Let me think about this as well… The language definitely is. And language makes a big difference, so they also say. Different nouns, adjectives, verbs… Different ways of saying some of the same things, aren’t they? Or are there always new things, different words in different places but deep inside with the same meanings?
         I’ve grown in different latitudes. This is a fact. Different weathers. Different cultures. Different people. Different history and stories. Some different ways of understanding life.
          I grew in the arms of different motherlands. Like a transplanted plant.
         Different composts, different waters, different airs...
         But the roots are still there. The same roots of a growing plant in different lands.
         A transplanted human being.
         A man in search.
         A stranger, anyway.