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I am a Turtle



Its always the beginning that is different, and even when disguised by excitement of the new and fresh, it challenges.

Adjustments to having no root, even in the face of being the Turtle, where everything I need is here, beneath my shell. And this shell, not hard to penetrate, but instead welcoming, inviting new friends in, new loves, new sensations.

But I am the newcomer and even if the people around seem welcoming, there is history to be made here, and this comes to haunt late at night when alone in a tiny bedroom in a house that isn't mine and in a land where there are no known references to pull from.

And so a sudden nostalgia. Things back home look delicious and much more favorable. That little brownstone pad in Brooklyn with a local cafe around the corner, and good friends just a phone call or a subway ride away. This, even knowing that I'm going to give this new city in another country a real shot.

Plans. Not just to find another place to live here, one where I have more autonomy in the space, but also plans for Thailand, an escape from my first winter in Berlin. Having a dear friend with whom to plan and take this journey softens all, but there is still, of course, this sensation of being the blown dandelion puff... floating in the wind, weightless.

Its a sensation I've drawn in. I wanted it. I wanted to be "blissfully homeless" for a while, and of course there is a price. But its not a bad price. I'm free. I have only a few things, and in Thailand I will have even less. I have a job, dance studios that want me to teach, new friends around to grow relationships with... a different feeling than when I arrived in Buenos Aires years ago, in love and not knowing what aches I was in for before I built myself new.

Now I am a turtle. A sea turtle, using the water to find my way around obstacles, managing myself in this element to circumvents rock and sunken ships, navigating towards a new idea of home.




Comments

Pauletta said…
Sea turtles known to live a long, long life!
Enjoy the ocean. PB
November 8, 2012 at 9:10 AM
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