No one here needed to know the truth or to question whether such authenticity was achievable. So on this particular occasion I had dressed as I always did, to announce my individuality and assert that I had indeed found authenticity. I had given up all of this in the hope that I would no longer have to live a lie, that I could, at last, come into my authentic self. I had left behind strangers who, passing on the street, bid each other good day, and people who put off their own chores to lend you a hand. I lived now without the deep comfort of neighbours who cooked more food than they needed for themselves so that they could parcel it up and bring you some. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 19 to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I was a champ for giving up the perks of living with family, among friends whose families had known mine for generations, among people familiar to me from primary school days. Shani Mootoo, writer, visual artist and video maker, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1957 to Trinidadian parents. “We were all, I thought, counting on the probability that, simply by living in a big North American city, we would be greeted as warriors on our arrival back home by those who knew us and those who didn’t alike.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |