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Merry Crisis

Hi everyone, here’s a short (and kind of dramatic) text I wrote on Christmas, which is a time of year I can imagine many immigrants cry… Hope you’re all doing well and are having a nice break, and if not, it’s almost over 😉





I can’t lie, I was expecting some tears today.

I guess I’ve been expecting them for a while now, just waiting for them to creep up and take me by surprise. Well, it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise if I just said I’ve been expecting them. Anyway.

I woke up late and brushed my teeth; it’s too late to have breakfast, I’ll just have lunch in an hour. By then the sun will have almost set.

I like to cut vegetables up when I’m overthinking; maybe it’s just nice to have something to do with my hands. I didn’t buy onions this week, if that’s where you thought this was going.

I cook and eat and clean the dishes and have some tea. And I catch a glimpse of my own reflection in the window, sitting on the couch.

It’s Christmas Day, and I look like my mother when I put my hair up.
It’s Christmas Day, and maybe I’ll never be home again.

4 replies on “Merry Crisis”

Dear Marina,
I wish you a Merry Christmas, I too expected tears and they have come. I cut onions, but that’s not why I cried.
Where is your home? I just read: Home is a feeling …
Best bkb

Thanks for the comment!
I’m from Brazil, but I guess what I mean by home in this case is the feeling of family gatherings such as Christmas, which I associate a lot with childhood. Now that everyone is older, childhood homes have been sold and cousins and siblings each moved away to their own corner of the world (including me!), some family members are no longer with us… Things never stop changing, so I guess we just need to find a new meaning for “home” 🙂

In my experience, home can mean: a feeling, a smell, a sound, a memory, a photo, a letter, a voice, an argument, a cake (I baked cake that I knew from my childhood), a handwriting, a body movement… Fortunately, one can say, because one can find a home in many things. So those who have to leave their family place against their will or because of a necessity are not completely lost.

made my heart ache. we don’t celebrate christmas but I still get the “vibe”, this cozy family vibe of which i am not a part of. and it of course only makes me thinking about our own cozy family gathering vibe, which are long gone for various reasons. not sure what exactly i miss though. is it just home? my parents and grandparents being young, alive and healthy? is it being a child? then I think of this line, “i miss you more than I remember you.”
but ive found best I could do is to accept and embrace this sadness, this empty space. cherish what i had and all the love i received. here’s to a great year dear Marina. to good food and the smell of cookies in the oven and to music and hugs and magic. and to new homes. as many as one needs.

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