Wherever You Want
“Hey, what do you say when people ask where you’re from?” An innocent enough question from my cousin, except I didn’t have an answer because, unbeknownst to even myself, I stopped trying to find out ages ago. Conversations about this would normally go something like this —
Where am I from? Bangladesh, I was born there. Oh, yeah, well I don’t look desi because I look like my mom’s family… no, they’re Bangali too! Both my parents are from South Asia. Yeah I dress like this because I spent most of my life on and off in Ne — yeah, actually, people tell me all the time I don’t look Bangali, the novelty wore off a long time ago to be honest…. Oh, okay, I guess you could say I am foreign, then…
And so on. Day in, day out, trying to bat away peoples’ seemingly obsessive need to stick a neat label on me and put me with all the other objects that fit into the same category.
Back to her question. I replied with, “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it in a while.” I’ve expounded in great detail (read: ranted nonstop) about identity to her in the past so she didn’t question it, instead asking, “well how do you know you’re home? Where is it? New York? Ottawa? Dhaka? Is it London now?”
I knew the answer to that without really knowing, because I sure as hell knew what it felt like to be home . It was the sense of familiarity and comfort in the most inconsequential things: the moka pot spluttering out too much espresso for one person; rushing to the local ice cream shop just before closing time; the podcast that’s just as long as the subway ride into the city; the few seconds of waiting for the cold water to turn hot in the shower; endless cups of molasses tea despite the hottest of summer days.
“It’s wherever you want it to be, as long as there’s comfort and contentment.”
I answered before she even finished asking. She looked like she knew what I was talking about, but waiting for me to clarify.
“I don’t think it’s one specific place for people like us who are usually on the move. We’re too used to picking up and disappearing, and before we even have a chance to settle down we’re off to the next place. I think we struggle with this question a lot because we leave pieces of ourselves behind and when it’s time to leave we unknowingly take some things with us as we set off on the next adventure. ”
“I like that. It makes total sense,” she replied. “I get tired of explaining to people that, just because I’m from Bangladesh, it doesn’t mean that I fit every single assumption they have of what it means to be someone from that part of the world. I’m here now, and I’ve picked up European traits and lost certain desi ones. I feel too foreign for both,” she said and I was yet again reminded of Ijeoma Umebinyuo’s Diaspora Blues.
What it means to feel at home, I know for a fact. Where is home, though? I don’t have a clue, and I don’t think that’s the point anymore.
