I stepped off the plane today. I was in Toronto and finally home.
I walked around the airport, with a new sense of energy. I felt so alive and confident. I was back in a land that knew me.
… but then I looked around and saw so many faces. Interesting. Maybe the land knew them as well. I began to wonder how much I shared with the group of strangers in the same room. And how much we differed…
***
I feel like human beings have this complex in which they want to convince themselves that our situations and our lives are so unique. I do, at least. I take pride in knowing and feeling like what I experience and go through is alien to the average person. Of course, in some ways our experiences are foreign to some people. But here I hear my favorite grad school professor, Kwok Pui Lan, exclaiming, “but it is only foreign to you.” There are some people who find those same experiences familiar, some who may even call it home.
It is so easy to lock ourselves in our own glass boxes. Convinced of our own fragility, magnitude and specificity. But as we do this we convince ourselves that we are beings too complex to be understood. Ironically, we crave to be understood, and in some ways we become people who perpetuate our own loneliness.
***
If there is one thing I learned it is that in many ways we are wandering people. We seek to find a home, but grow restless when asked to commit ourselves to one spot one person one life. We live in paradox. We want to emulate ourselves, but be people who hide in the shadows. We want to travel, but with the comforts of home. We want excitement, but do not care to part with comfort. But when you wander you realize that though you are in paradox, one thing is for sure: you are only human and so is your neighbor. Though you may be different ages, races, genders, sexualities– there are themes you can unite on. Indeed, that is the human experience.
