Let us build new stories

You question my identity.

You tell me to forget my old home… to make a new one.

You tell me that it’s time to move on.

And I desperately want to belong here. Sometimes, it would be easier to forget, to rebuild from scratch. But I cannot put into words how complicated that is.

How do I put into words how odd this place feels? How do I tell you how much it kills me, how much I am confused by the smooth roads, the fast food, the traffic lights? I don’t know how to communicate that your country seems strange to me.

I don’t know how to tell you how much I long for the red-dirt roads. I don’t know how to tell you that I miss the fiery sunsets that are unmatched by anything I see here.

I don’t have words to tell you that the shades of green on your trees here seem dull compared to the mango trees near my home.

But I have come to this country that is supposed to be my country. I am trying to make it home.

You don’t want to hear my stories. You tell me that I identify too much with my upbringing.

Tell me, do you think you identify too much as an American? Do you think you identify too much with the things you do or don’t like?

You see, when you crave your comfort food you can go and buy it. Or you can make it. When I crave some of my old comfort food, I am in the wrong place. There is no wood-slatted tin-roofed red-cement-floor canteen here to sell me my stewed liver and chips, or even a chapatti.

I have explanations for why I act weirdly sometimes. I can tell you why when I gesture for someone to come I hesitate and end up looking awkward, while panicking inside. It’s because the American gesture for “come here” is the gesture for soliciting sex where I come from—so I had to learn a new way.

I have a thousand idiosyncrasies like this, and we could laugh about them together if you wanted to know.

But you don’t want to know.

I look like you, and so you want me to act like you.

Doing so has become easier with time. It has become almost too easy. And yet I have this hole in my heart. It is a hole that I can sometimes fill with my records of music from my old home.

I have stories, memories, that you cannot imagine. But here’s the catch: I want you to know. I want to share with you the joy, the pain, the utter beauty of my place.

And if you want to care about me, you will care about where I have been. You cannot take out my experiences. You can only encourage me to forget them, but I don’t want to do that.

So come, listen to my stories.

And come, let us make new ones. Let us watch the sunset over the mountains. Let us dance to indie music. Let us learn how to understand each other.

And let us never forget who we are.