To truly know a land is to become it—to embody its storms in your bones, taste its dark soil beneath your nails, know the tangled history of the people who walked before you.
It is true that I’m talking to a photo, but I’m not crazy. Neither am I a durochka. Fools are oblivious, at least those from my childhood fairy tales. I, on the other hand, am perfectly aware of the problem.
It paralyzes me to think about the sacrifices my family made before I was in my mother’s womb. When they came here they knew they would lose a part of their language, their memories, their sanctity of self.
The sounds I made were pleasant to my ears, but that’s all they were to me. I was too young to understand what culture and heritage meant, too young to understand the reasons behind memorizing ancient poems.
I knew that just as the country was reverting, so was I. Every face now seemed a potential enemy and these were feelings I had not felt in almost twenty years.