"Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile's life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement. The achievements of exile are permanently undermined by the loss of something left behind for ever."Through all the travel and all the moves, I've hung my heart a lot of places around the globe. But none is so special as Pakistan.
Over the weekend we visited Pakistani friends in San Diego who are very dear to us. Rehan was my husband's best friend during college. The friendship continued strong through marriage, kids, and now adult kids. We don't see them often enough, but when we do it is non stop talking, eating the best Pakistani food in the world, and laughing hard. The conversation moves from one topic to the next without a gap. We interrupt each other, go off topic, and we're loud.
It is always delightful, and this time was even more so.
Beyond the blue skies, Palm trees, and ocean was a house alive with warmth and hospitality. I didn't want to leave. My heart was so full! Full of friendship and Pakistan; memories and curry. But too soon the visit was over and I'm now sitting back in Boston, in a house that feels cold, with a heart that aches with the leaving.
When you've lived across the globe, you end up sharing your heart with a lot of people. Each one of them holds a small piece that makes up the whole, rather like a mosaic with bits of colored tile that an artist fits together to create a beautiful piece.
But when you've left your heart in so many places, it's also hard to come home, especially when home feels cold and lonely. Edward Said talks about exile and the "unhealable rift" between humans and their native places. My native place was Pakistan, a place far from the one marked as legal on my passport. So when I experience these times of connection, no matter how short, that unhealable rift is filled with the salve of understanding.
That's what I feel right now as I sit on my couch. A lonely cat is cuddled as close as possible to me, willing me to never leave again. I know how she feels. I hate leaving those I love. I hate the loneliness I feel when I walk in to a cold house in a place where I have to work so hard to belong. My heart is a dead weight, my sighs fill up the silence.
Frederick Buechner says this about loss "What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup." I read it, but right now I'm not sure I believe it.
The thing with feelings is that they can change in an instant. So I sit with a heavy heart filled with memories of those I've loved around the globe. Some gone, some still present but far away. These feelings will pass, my heart will feel lighter, my memory bank fuller.
But right now, I sit, holding on to archived memories to give me strength.
* Edward Said 'Reflections on Exile'