Belonging

Only now have I understood.

After years of departures, packed (out of necessity) with the thought of returning, only now have I understood. Wherever my steps may take me, no matter how far, a part of me will remain here forever: in the jungle of my childhood. In the murmur of the river behind the garden with the blue treehouse, in the (wonderfully beautiful!) stones that the water has traversed for centuries, in the locust trees that are about to collapse (since childhood I've wondered how their suspended roots still hold), in the 'dobele' (pools made by children from stones, branches, and plastic sheets, to be able to swim in the river) built with toil and cheers, in the washing mallets that echoed all day long when I was little and whose dull sound I still hear, even though the path down which the old women descended with their wash-tubs full of laundry is untrodden and overgrown, and now only we and a few neighbors still have access to the river through our gardens...

Only now have I understood. Perhaps because now I joyfully accept my simplicity and have learned to appreciate the true value of this place, from which I would no longer leave... But I still need to pack my bags...

Georgiana Camalessa

Photographs by Georgiana Camalessa