Hearts Series: Memoir Of A Foreign Mind

The year was 1989, the TV was on a 1964 Christmas special with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The foreign language hit her; she is enchanted with all the jazz. Later on, the movie on the TV is also about Christmas in a city filled with lights. Famous tall buildings and yellow cabs. Empire State of light. It is snowing lightly, and people are running through Times Square in heavy winter coats to buy last-minute holiday cards. In her hometown, there was no rush to buy holiday cards, nor the weather was so Nordic. She looked around and felt anywhere but home. She knew that, to become who she wanted to be, she would have to make a change. When she first moved to New York a couple of years ago, everything was exactly how she had expected it to be. The energy and the pace of the city that never sleeps got under her skin. She was in love, finally. For the first time in her life, she felt like she belonged. The foreign land has become home, whereas her actual homeland had always been foreign to her. The year now is 2021, away ahead in the future, neither she nor anyone would have imagined that a global pandemic would take place and that everybody, herself included, would have to rethink oldish concepts like home and purpose. 

New York is a city of foreigners. The food, the dreams, and the languages. Everything came here from elsewhere to find home, to find shelter and acceptance. Many will say New York is tough, it really is. In the midst of a pandemic, it is tougher. She managed, however, to get through this crisis and to reassure meaning in the city that embraced her in the early years of her intrepid endeavor. She decided then to celebrate the passage of this hard year by acknowledging a few things she has accomplished ever since. The pandemic is, obviously, far from over, but her spirit is rejuvenated. As if she had just moved into the arms of the Big Apple. Sometimes it is not about finding a motive, it is about creating it.

When life happens, it becomes really easy for our daily routines to overlap the big picture. The reality might not look like you have pictured in the past, but that doesn't mean you didn't get there. It only means that "there" has changed, which isn't necessarily bad, it just means life is in constant motion. The girl in our story sometimes thinks she might give up and that thought, somehow, saddened her until she realized how far she has come. The things we wish come true also change, and the sooner we accept that, the greater life gets. 

When I heard the expression "nature versus nurture" for the first time, I couldn't help but think that our foreign girl is me and that I am her. She represents all the metaphors of a foreigner's heart in their most meaningful journeys. Either to find new meaning or to fill a void, both foreign concepts to those who have chosen to take risks in life. Our foreign language is our home flag, and our accents aren't thick, they are simply strong. When we venture into a new language, we are also saying yes to a new adventure, in which we know we might not come out alive. At least, not as our old selves. 

Wendia Machado

Wendia Machado is a Brazilian writer who currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Born and raised in Aracaju, Brazil, the dream of achieving a successful career as a writer in the Big Apple presented itself when she was only seven. Nowadays, Wendia is a freelance columnist in NYC working on two projects: a first play O Sentido that will come out in 2020, and her first novel.

Instagram: @WendiaMachado

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