On exile

Christmas Eve Llara and I went to visit some friends of our hostess. The friends live in the shadow of Notre Dame and down the street a piece. The flat could have been used for any set for a French movie set in a Paris apartment. The table bore the results of a lavish meal, the marble fireplace was decorated with boughs and drapes were swagged in the floor-to-ceiling windows. Three generations mingled around.

The languages because of my daughter’s presence went from French to German and English, bouncing back and forth.

The hostess was an active participant in helping Indian girl orphans making sure that they have work opportunities, but even more interesting was the Tibetan woman, who only after I left did I discover she was the niece of the Dalai Lama. I thought she just had an interesting history of exile and could make a wonderful milky marsala tea.

I choose to live outside the country of my birth. With the exception of one week in September 2001 I know the only thing from keeping me hopping on a plane is my own desire. But not to be able to return to the US because of an occupying force is different. Living outside our birth cultures and returning became a major topic of conversation.

When the Tibetan woman was exiled, she was a child and she grew up in India. Children adapt, but as we settle into a new culture, we become half breeds with comfort zones in our new cultures that we miss when we return to the countries of our birth. That doesn’t even begin to cover change. As the saying goes we can’t step into the same river in the same place. However, choosing to leave the river and being thrown out are so different.

I used the analogy of buying a plant at a nursery. The original roots go into the soil, but then they extend going deeper into the new soil as the plant grows upward. If you dig out the plant and cut off the new roots the plant will die, but if you cut off the original roots, the plant will also die making the plant an accumulation of its new and old growth.