So this is quite a bit late after the fact,
but I’ve been wanting to blog about some anxieties I was having towards the end
of my sojourn in Cadiz before I was to make the voyage back to sweet home
Salamanca. One night it occurred to me que ya no soy salamatina, I’m not
Salamancan anymore. It was breaking my heart that a city that had been my home
for four of the more amazing months of my life no longer felt like home, yet at
the same time, I wasn’t gaditana either. Cadiz had been my home for 6 weeks and
while I loved it, and I would gladly live there again, it wasn’t really my home
yet. I was having an identity crisis,
one of many I’ve had over the years that I have always related back to the idea
of having roots and wings.
For good or bad, I think it’s important to
know where we come from. Some people disagree, and that’s ok; I blame my strong
affinity to history, home, and identity on my Cancerian astrology and I embrace
it. My love for languages, travel and different cultures affords me the opportunity
to have multiple homes, multicultural traditions, and a mosaic identity. Bits
and pieces of different colored tile, one picture, one person, me.
I was
feeling that the roots I had laid in Salamanca were withering, that I was
losing my connection to a place that had been held sacred in my heart from some
time. I felt a bit like a vagabond,
wandering aimlessly with no place to call home; people thinking I was Spanish
and identifying me as gaditana from my accent which left no trace of my
Castilian roots both delighted and
disheartened me.
Despite my anxieties that returning to
Salamanca would only confirm my fear that I could no longer call that city
home, that it would all feel even more obscure than a distant memory, that I
wouldn’t recognize my home, that I would no longer belong, something amazing
happened. I slept on the bus from
Madrid, waking up just in time to catch the first views on the cathedral in the
distance. Walking the old familiar route from the bus stop into the city center
rejuvenated me. And when I checked into the hotel room it could not have been
more perfect. Green: my favorite color, the color of growth and new beginnings.
And roots and wings.
Fate was sending me a message. Where would
I be today if I hadn’t studied in Salamanca? Strengthening my skills in Spanish
and sprouting my understanding of the incredible adventure that is study abroad
there is part of what led me to my job in Cadiz. It brought me back to Spain,
to home. I hadn’t lost my home in Salamanca. My roots were strong there, and
they gave me the wings to fly.
