The Place I Inhabit Is Them

How easy it is to forget to sit, look, and realise exactly where I am. Regardless of place, I watch my girls grow up and enjoy simple childhood pleasures, like flying a kite. I could be anywhere in the world; the place I inhabit is them. 

But I am seated on a park bench, in a public circular square, right outside ancient Citadel walls. I am watching the girls try to fly their kites.

I often wonder what memories of their childhood my daughters will carry. My foreign is closer to their normal, or even is their normal. Will they remember the hum and beep of motorbikes all around them, or just their kite and the circular island park, a fraction too devoid of wind?

I soak in the parade of people passing by the edge of the park. Will they remember the pink lotus flower and the blue and orange dragonfly with yellow polkadots they painted on their kites? What will I remember of this afternoon? Will I remember the juxtaposition of the two worlds or will it fuse together and form a new place? No longer foreign, but no longer familiar, a different frontier.

It's poetically beautiful here, watching the sunset behind a tree casting its long shadows across a large circular paved public space, with tiles radiating out like a giant sliced pizza. The sunlight catches on the red and yellow tassels of the kites, and the translucent white turns golden. I hear so much chatter, all in a language I don't understand, but that's okay. This space doesn't need words. This public garden and park is universal.