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Home as a memorial place and how to rebuild a new meaning.
The first words that I wrote when I came here were:
“What is there to say? There is a dissociation present. My body has landed but my soul is there. I'm still living with my Dutch friends in mind.
Not fully present at the moment. A tourist of the sun. A student
of a new reality. Because now that I am home, how do I
relate to it? I have arrived but how do I define it?
How do I make sense of this place that I am
supposed to call home? That's the
real question.’
The longer that I am here, the more I seem to surrender to the idea that home is undefinable. It is an ever evolving concept. I see home as a resemblance of life and it is therefore incomprehensible as a definitive thing. And while we often wish for it to be just beautiful, only kind, solely warm and exclusively nurturing, it is not. Our dreams are yet to be big enough to overpower reality. I wish us all good luck tho, because we know better than to fairytale our shelters and sacred spaces into delusion. When has life ever offered us a monolithic experience of all things good?
But here we are remembering and recalling the best of things of a specific space, land, or moment in order for that thing to be rich enough to fit our mental snapshot of it. I mean, we all know the feeling where we can’t wait to go home and be with family, until we are actually there and need breathing exercises to stay calm in family discussions. Or when we finally have the chance to indulge in delicious home-made or local meals, but are simultaneously bombarded with questions like ‘when will you get married?’, at every single bite you take. Still, we prefer to not pack those memories in our luggage, in order to hold on to our hallmark dream for as long as possible.
Because if our chosen homes can’t even be exclusively tender, soft, safe and of belonging, where can we freely let our hair down in this lifetime? Where can we hear the oceans whisper sensitivity in our hearts?
And if not, in the presence of our family, where can we feel rooted, seen, connected and represented?
" When has life ever offered us a monolithic experience of all things good? "
The truth is nowhere and never. There is no place on earth of negative or challenging absence. Every place has its layers, Curaçao included. And if we were to understand the word memorial as something that keeps our lived experiences alive, Curacao is very much that for me. Specifically because of the realization that I would never return to the home that I had left behind 10 years ago. That version of Curaçao is long gone. Hell, that version of me is long gone, or at least grown up. All I have are memories. Memories of the sea, my school, my dance classes, the food without returning to the house I grew up in. Nor having a big family that welcomed me with open arms. In fact, I haven’t spoken to them since my parents divorced each other more than 10 years ago and I was overwhelmingly confronted with the loose ends of my childhood trauma, especially in regards to my parents. While I was able to have deep, uncomfortable, painful and real talks with my mother, the same was not the case for my father. I am still scared of him, and he stands too far away from a safety I desire. I knew that moving to Curaçao would increase the possibility that I would see him, but it was only when I was here that I really felt the depth of all the fear I carried.
"I am continuously baffled by the way in which we assume that returning to your home country is in and of itself a return to your comfort zone."
With all of this in mind, I am continuously baffled by the way in which we assume that returning to your home country is in and of itself a return to your comfort zone. A place where you feel safe, family warmly awaits and where one seemingly blends in. Is that really a fair expectation, especially after displacement or migration? How can your place of birth automatically provide you with a sense of belonging and retrieval when you’ve lived oceans away from it for many years? Is it really possible to start fresh when we all have baggage, trauma’s, histories and memories? Can our expatriate auras really go unnoticed in a community that has lived 10 years without you? I personally don’t think so. There may be a sense of grounding when our hearts are embraced by those who shaped and raised us, but it is never only nice, unproblematic or isolated. I mean, family and culture are probably the messiest things to ever exist on this earth. And even if all was ‘easy’ in a relational or memorial context we’d still be confronted with our own demons of insecurity and unworthiness. Believe me, I ‘ve had my own fair share of emotional spirals in the midst of my jobless but domesticated and manifesting days.
So when people label my return as a ‘permanent vacation’, every muscle in my body is paralyzed by perplexity. How dare you think that you've left our land in a good state - isn't your country the one with social benefits? How dare you think that my return is a return to what it once was? ? And have you not seen what life does to people? Over here, we too, grow, deteriorate, fall, struggle, divorce, (over)work, overthink, stand still, manifest, expand, grief, neglect, abuse, nurture, fall apart, love and break up. We too have complex histories, traumas, cultures and identities shaping our current existence. That my friend is not just a European thing. So how is it that you make such uninformed and ignorant comments, as though the wholeness of our lives don’t matter? How is it that you cannot see us - Caribbean folks - as people who experience the full spectrum of life? And how is it that you cannot comprehend that my home is indeed a place where people actually live and make a living - and so we too are challenged with the complexities of life?
We too, grow, deteriorate, fall, struggle, divorce, (over)work, overthink, stand still, manifest, expand, neglect, abuse, nurture, fall apart, love and break up. So how is it that you cannot see us - Caribbeans - as people who experience the full spectrum of life?
I’m sure that y’all find a way to dodge these questions, but in the meantime I invite you to change the way you speak about Caribbean countries. This place is the home of many people - it is the home I am growing into. So may this be the last time that you invisibilize our growth, our humanity, our struggle, our individuality, our culture, our social practice and consciousness. The time of a home unseen is no longer of the times. So please, hold us a little higher will you? Bless yourself with the opportunity and willingness to understand what home could be for others, not based on your privilege or ignorance, but based on what is real. Based on unlimited, nuanced, ever-changing and layered experiences of complex belonging. Based on a safety that resides within ourselves and a belonging that flows in our bloodstream. Based on an accumulation of memorial blessings and the potential to rebuild a new meaning to it. The potential to hold space for all the lived experiences of my people, me included. Because if it were to be based on your European definition, too many of us would be homeless - in a world that already has a crisis.
Written by Aqueene Wilson
Published on December 26th, 2024
Contact: aqueenewilson@gmail.com
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