I think of the good friends I have made over the years, how did they enter your life, silently, and then become inevitably etched..some arrive and leave soon enough but some others, will stay, regardless of time and distance.. How different it was for our ancestors, who were born, lived and died within miles of their known world.. We are the generation of travellers, first of all genetic travellers, since many of us carry genes from various parts of the world, we are born into places where our parents were strangers, and we grew up in some other part of the world and then studied, more travels.. Lucky are those of us, who can maintain our cultural identity through all this commotion. Some escape this cultural confusion by saying that they are a citizen of the world, more metaphoric than meanigful.. we all belong somewhere.. and as the poet Pablo Neruda has said.. un alma sin raices es injusticia.. a soul without roots is an injustice.. I have always liked people with strong national identity, who did not let geography or politics sway them into believing something else..
Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Burma all have given me good friends.. just in that part of the world... the largest number of friends are still in Cuba...with the advent of internet, it has become easier to keep in touch ..
The couple who stay in a farm house which was built in 1750s, she is from Normandie and he is a Breton; what a delightful couple. unpretentious. warm and in their presence, you feel yourself glowing.. i was with them this past weekend..
it is a wednesday evening in Paris, tomorrow I fly to Miami, yet another change. Liminality it is called in Anthropology...changing worlds, but full of affections..
Two months of 2009: Two Trips to India, this is the second trip to the USA.. just sit back and enjoy..
and of course, this is France, there is always good food, a nice bottle of wine.. just add lustre to the friendship..
