Where do you come from?

Where are you from?

‘There I was again, a delegate in an international conference, this time in Germany, socialising with fellow academics from all over the world: ‘[my name], where are you from?’ ‘Oh, well, I came from London, I work in London for a British University but I am Greek…I also work in Greece’. Again, a familiar hesitation, a feeling of having to... justify (?) myself for what I am and for what I also am, or I am not, an uneasiness. For almost three years now, I have been living through the stories I tell about being and not being there...We all live through our stories but mine? Somehow disconnected, actually some of them totally disconnected. Stories that always leave me with this sense of incompleteness; before I finish them, I have to fly back, go somewhere, leave behind, only to expect that I will find the same or other stories again soon, maybe not there but somewhere, somewhere else, not here. My life is as if it is lived only when I tell these stories about me not-here, not before. And I know that as I talk about my past, I try to bridge the gap between the two places, to eradicate the distance, to stand still. Or, at least, if I could take you all with me, here and there? People, events, conversations fade in a recurrent question: “when are you leaving again?”. Standing still, trying to find my centre, me the decentred one, to find my balance with one foot on one boat and the other on another, like this, balancing, I feel I am sailing away, somewhere else, not here. Yes, I also work in Greece, yes, I have a home there, yes, and my home is in London....Which part of the story do you want to hear?’ (July 2005, Diary Entry, Conference, Berlin)].

#Greek #British #bridge #sailing