Would you...?

@UNHCR

Even these days, after many years of being far from my homeland, whenever travelling through the vast plains and gazing through the window my eyes seem to draw shapes of vague mountain silhouettes somewhere at the far end. It is because my childhood horizons were always framed with them. A few seconds later my mind reports back with some disappointment: “Oh, those are just the clouds”.

And when after a long absence I finally reach the sea I am excited as if I am about to meet a good old friend. Each time the two of us meet I cannot help but grin from one ear to another, crack jokes, loosen up, dip my fingers and toes into it to say hello and I breathe out with relief for I’ve met somebody who can understand me without saying a word because we have a history together. We can sit together comfortably silent for hours. I know its smell and the way it feels from the dark moody greyness to a cheerful morning crystal blue. I know how warm and quiet it feels when it sleeps and how much comfort can be found in its embrace. I like it when it is gentle and sways me on its back, I like it when it is playful and tosses me around. I like it so much that even when we part I love to feel its presence at least for a little while on my skin, eyelashes, hair. And yet we cannot be together, not without much sacrifice.

I am not sure everybody is aware of this sacrifice. I have met a number of those who dream of getting their old life back. It is more than a dream. It is an excuse for not living their present life. It is an escapism to the memories that are expected to become alive again some day. I used to be one of those people.

However, these days some of the usual questions  “Would you return?”, “Do you ever wish none of this has happened?”, “Are you nostalgic about your hometown?”...  sound very simplified, naive and incomplete to me. These questions actually answer themselves when finished through:

Would you give up your life that you have now, your present job, friends, hobbies and little habits and return to a place full of strangers, a place where you would have to hide or give up a part of your identity, family tradition and religion, a place where you don’t mention your relatives, a place where you cannot choose who you want to be but must assimilate with the overbearing majority?

Would you prefer to have lived your old life undisturbed by all the painfully acquired but precious knowledge about the ways of the world, of what freedom means, how little possessions matter, how very important is to work on yourself, how little is needed to get by, what makes a true friend, what makes a good human being, how important is your family, what life is all about?

Would you feel at home in a place where you are not accepted for who you are, where there is nobody you know, nobody you love? Can pretty buildings, familiar sights, the colour of the sky and the smell of the sea make up for the warmth around the heart that is missing? Can you live out of memories?