MODERN IFIGENIA

I often write about my experiences as an immigrant; a series of moments of flux and transition, amusement and discord, complete openness and heavy walls. There is very little that is fixed. As I grow older though, the notion of "home" becomes stronger and stronger, increasingly fixed and solid in some ways but geographically unstable and dispersed. As I grow older and older my pangs of homesickness are sharper-every once in a while I sit and can't stop myself from yearning for people and places that have nothing to do with each other. I now understand that stare my mom has when she is enjoying a very fresh and ripe fruit-she is here eating the fruit, but she is also "there" enjoying it. When I was young it would get on my nerves to see her disappear, but now, I respect her brief moment of meditation on time,  place and belonging. So when I say I am homesick-its not in quite the same way people who are born and raised in the same place speak of homesickness...