• Home
  • About
  • StumbleUpon

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A Promise

I have not maintained the habit to post on this blog. My attention has been placed on surviving in this new world called America. It is a surprise to some that I am not happy to return. I resume life in a culture I feel alien in; it has treated me this way. Birth into it is a fact but not a reality. Returning to it is a reality but not a fact. My heart sees these things in such ways.

How can one not embrace this mother called American culture that bore and suckled him, that raised and tutored him and bred his manners? Quite a question. The answer is I transcended this identity, first innately, then by living among others in different ways in distant lands and learning what it is to be Human. This is a greater distinction than being a man from a place.

Enough for now. There's another matter. A stout, full figured but very short woman, a woman said to be the smartest in Zagreb, compelled me by the force of reason into a promise to write about my life on this blog. She knows my life well, so her intent was absurd; no one would believe it. If I heard tales about my life, I would not believe them either. Yet, I capitulated and made a promise. And, in consequence, I suspended writing here.

After all these months, I think I may satisfy the promise to her on my terms. Like promising to swim, but up to my ankles. She and her husband once saved my life by giving me a place to sleep and rice every evening. This is the only sign of gratitude expected.