“As migrants we leave home in search of a future, but we lose the past”
“And that was when my eyes started welling up. Now it could have been any number of triggers — alcohol, jet lag or the mention of my mother, who died decades ago. But what really upset me was realising that in this town, people I wasn’t even particularly close to knew me in a way that nobody else would. They knew place names that no one else in my regular life (apart from my brothers) knew. And yes, they not only knew my mother but they knew me when I had a mother.
The following day I would fly to a place where people knew a version of me where very little of any of this applied. My friends in New York knew I had brothers and had lost my mother. They knew I grew up working class in a town near London. The rest was footnotes — too much information for transient people, including myself who would soon move to Chicago, who were travelling light…
You may have to leave behind your partner, your kids and your home. In time, in order to survive, you may have to let go of your language, your religion and your sense of self…
This is not a sob story. But every now and then, when I least expect them, the tears come anyhow.”
