SUMMER AND HOME

It’s been a while!

I blame it on my easter holidays in Cameroon; the preps to go there (shopping, shopping, packing, shopping…), the actual stay (the surreal soaking in), the return to reality (takes some adjustment, like waking up at 4.30am!)…just a lot to handle. But here we are again for another round…

That’s what life is about isn’t it? At least mine is: fall, trip, get up again, hoping to be stable for a long enough stretch before falling / tripping again. Wouldn’t it be boring to walk straight all the time? Where would be the thrill?! Naturally it depends on whether we gracefully fall or we crash, the latter not very fun…

My son and I thoroughly enjoyed our holidays back home. Personally, it’s become a very surreal experience to go back as time goes by, more so because I’ve not gone back that often – 6 times in 25 years, a bit insane…

A simple walk to the bakery there is an emotionally loaded trip; sensations and flashbacks weigh my steps down, I just want to stop at every step as I relive past scenes, see forgotten faces and places, hear familiar noises or catch mental sight of human and inhuman ghosts…

Home is supposed to be an easy notion to grasp, but for people like me who have put down roots away from their country or place of origin, not so much. The place I call home is deeply different at many levels from where I exited my teenage years, where I work, raise my child, where I have laid my adulthood foundations.

I’ve always felt full of hopes and particularly braver during summer. Welcome to the club you might retort, but for me summer is more than the warm temperatures.

Summer takes me back home where I fabricated the first vision for my life. Summer brings a sense of familiarity that makes home feel nearer, more accessible at least in my heart and mind. It takes me home where plenty of dreams were made, where I felt like possibilities were endless, where I looked outward and forward, adhering to the idea of the vastness of the universe.

The summer vibes tend to awaken that very young dreamer in me; I’m back in the mundane far from Cameroon, but it’s summer. Forgone the-sky-is-the-limit sensations revisit me, and I feel 13 again.

Summer is home.