friends who are expats, I think you might feel understood and thankful for the words put to some thoughts youve had. friends who love me and have sought to understand what some things feel like, these words are a lot of what the summer/transition back felt like: djiboutijones/2014/08/on-leaving/ some favorite lines: I’m heading somewhere I want to go and leaving somewhere I want to stay and I want to be in both places and so I try to force the in between to linger. Tears stream down and blow off my cheeks, stolen by wind During leaving days every interaction is intensified, every color made more brilliant. Do you know I’m going back to Africa, to Djibouti, on Thursday? I want to say to the cashier, the postman, the hair stylist. Do you know this is my last box of strawberries, my last jog in shorts, my last swim in fresh water, my last heart-bearing conversation with you, dear friend? Do you know how exhausting it is to live so many lasts, again? And then next week to be living so many firsts, again? To be so heavily aware of the preciousness in each moment, each bite, each conversation, each sunburn? There is grief and loss and joy and gain. Because there is both leaving and arriving and in the middle is the purgatory airplane ride during which I will pass from one world to the next. Is it too dramatic to say leaving feels like death? If you knew which day you were going to die…? I do. I know that on this particular day I will leave and I won’t be back for a couple of years and in those passing years, things and people change. And every second lived during the leaving days is weighted down with the knowledge that I can’t have this back. I look at the cornfields and think, I love cornfields and why can’t I stay here? But I’m afraid that if I stayed I might not love cornfields the same way anymore. I wouldn’t love them in a leaving way. If I stayed I wouldn’t see the ocean and wouldn’t think I love the ocean, wouldn’t love the ocean in a leaving way. A tug-of-war reigns and it is both exhausting and life-affirming. It intensifies color and taste and laughter and sadness.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:34:59 +0000
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