Next week, Inshallah, I might sit in another Chinese restaurant, like the one I am now attending in Eindhoven. Might be a damp hot place somewhere in Jakarta. The same jasmine tea might be served there, but surely will taste different. Doesn’t everything taste, smell, feel differently when you’re home?
In a few days, I hope to have landed in our unknown homeland, together with my two grown up sons, who I’d like to connect with their ancestors, their family and the world they only know by hearing stories, understanding forlorn words in our slang Petjoh language, or by meeting occasionally their Eurasian families. Our dear own ‘pater familias’ will stay at home, guarding our anchor spot here in Eindhoven.
We hope to meet our family over there, but we won’t be able to talk to each other in any of our ‘own’ languages. Still, we share the same grandparents. It will be the place of our deepest origins.
Somehow, it doesn’t feel like just another holiday trip to a warm country. Nor does it feel like going home in the sense that it is a place where you understand everything, don’t have to explain your behavior or don’t feel lost. It feels more like a ‘need’ to meet. An opportunity as well. A chance to try and restore deep wounds, let our blood stream through old veins again, tie together lost strings and accept the reality of disunity and uprooting.
It’s about liberating an inner connection. Big words for our journey to come!
But, except our light and cheerful visiting family and places, this reality will be present there as well. It’s part of the deal and I believe it’s worthwhile to recognize and value it.
So, I am happy, although I am also a bit worried, but most of all I am looking forward to this special journey ‘home’, with open heart and open eyes. Looking forward to spend so much time with my sons and share our experiences. And also looking forward to come back ‘home’ to my Paul to share and strengthen our dual colorful anchoring ..
Fragment from my poem ‘Cracking glass’
"… Yet, one day, I shall return with in my arms my worn out
soul. Rusty twilight shall be doubting, tinkling in the pits of
overgrown tree tops. Abundant as they are, their leaves shall
still reveal their secrets, swallowing their sadness. And I …"
Carola Eijsenring, www.indigo-wereld.nl
Carola writes for Eindhoven News on a monthly basis, she writes about things happening in her life, subjects that touch the multicultural world of Eindhoven.
Www.indigo-wereld.nl
