The question of personal,
individual identity has been bothering me, on and off, for many years, like a
shawl of annoying guppies nibbling at the algae on the aquarium glass. This is
the first time I have decided to put some of these thoughts in writing (mainly to get rid of the guppies) and I am still trying to put my finger on the
exact source of my discomfort. All I can do at the time is ask questions.
How, in a “global village” or as
a “European” do you answer the casual question inevitably asked when meeting
someone new: “Where are you from” (are you friend or foe, are you like me, or shall I grin nervously and back out, slowly?)
I live in Spain. I was born in Poland and
spent my childhood there. I grew up speaking English as well as Polish. I still speak Polish fluently, mostly with my mother on the phone; I also read books and newspapers online
in that language. After decades of living in Spain I
dream in Spanish. I dream and count
in English, too and I write poetry in English and in Polish. I find Spanish to be
difficult for poetry. I sing in Spanish and get angry in English. When I am
very scared I might revert to a Polish exclamation. When I hit my finger with a
hammer I used to say “oh fuck”. More and more often I may say “coño”. I am not patriotic
in any of those languages. I vote in Spain and for the European
Parliament. I am involved in Spanish politics. I follow Polish politics, as well as British, American and global. I am not a Catholic, I stopped when I was seven due to a Sunday School teacher announcing that little black children in Africa had no soul and it was our Christian duty to help them be baptized so they can get one.
During many introductions at parties, in the street or in a circle of friends I have been
automatically asked to confirm the greatness of Pope Paul II, Lech Walesa and
Polish vodka, in random order. I have been repeatedly pitied for being so far away from home and asked how
often I “go back”.
When do I get the badge, the symbol, or the coat of arms
showing I feel at home where I am now? People I meet do not know what passport I hold, what my legal status is, neither should they care. Do I want the label of being from Spain then? Would I rather
those questions became unimportant?
Hemingway said you were from the place where
you wanted to be buried. I do not particularly care, and I don´t think I will be
around to put an x on the exact spot. "Home is where the heart is". Well, mine seems to float in many places. It hovers over Spanish mountains a lot and the thick forests in eastern Poland, it wakes up smelling fresh frog spawn and mud at the river I loved as a child. It pops over to France sometimes and wants to smell sardines roasting on a Portuguese beach in the summer. It longs for the clear long days which never become a night in northern Russia and the open highways of the American north. Sometimes it bobs up and down in outer
space trying to find a supernova or it is sucked into a black hole where it rides the folding time and pops back up in 15th Century Mongolia. Sometimes my
heart is with a bird or a dragonfly I am watching through binoculars. Sometimes it is
with a friend. Often it is with my dog.
I have taken to tapping my
frontal lobe to answer the question where I was from. I felt this was simply the closest
to a correct and fair answer. It hasn´t turned out to be an effective way of making new friends.
We are so much more than a spot on the map, a religion, a language or two, a set of mindless customs we perform automatically. More than a cocktail of genes ( and I was surprised to discover how many various races make up our genetic signature, even if we seem homogenous and obvious).
We are more than our parent´s convictions and expectations. We are more than our current self image and may change tomorrow. We cannot possible be sorted and contained by the lazy and unnecessary question of pinpointing our accident of birth (thank you, Richard Dawkins). So, let´s go forth and make wrong answers for such wrong questions. Tapping your forehead may not make you friends but it does move the conversation along.
