Yugo-Nostalgia

"Maybe unhappiness is the continuum through which a human life moves, and joy just a series of blips, of islands in the stream.  Or if not unhappiness, at least melancholy."

                

                                                  Salaman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses                                                                            

Dynamics of my family life encompasses melancholic nature that touches all of our familial members.  Music, poetry, social expressions, simply art, tie us in a unique way where we feel yugo-nostalgic.  The basic definition of yugo-nostalgia is a longing for things left in past, for human connection that lingers decades after it disappeared.  On one particular evening, not that long ago, my mother and I were spending some time together drinking wine and watching videos online.  As I was enjoying the night filled with music and poetry from back home, my mom glanced over at me and with genuine, loving tone in her voice said while pointing at the screen: "This is why, you and your brother cannot find someone to share life with because it is rare to find a person who can grasp all of this."

By all of this she meant deeply rooted nostalgia that triggers stream of emotions that make sense only in the Balkan terms.  We can theorize of general connections around the world, but this authentic feeling seems reserved to our homeland and unfortunately even those back home have a hard time detecting it.  Every little sensation within produces emotional tingles when we sense love, the pain, regret and melancholy felt for the vision of the future that will never occur.  Our problem resides in that particular universality that many confuse with choices made rather than inheritance.  My personal experiences grow and I expose myself quite often to a distinct sets of thinking, however, I somehow always draw magnetically to my universal code of Balkanism.  Sometimes, I feel as if I am multiplied in different shapes or versions of me.  I wonder if I am the same person when I speak English, or do I seem disingenuous?    Are those really different renditions of myself or I am I acting out dealt roles?  I am constantly drifting and searching for the similar drifters but somehow I fail to find a way to completely comprehend myself.

As I was visiting my parents, I realized that I go home to Yugoslavia every time I see them.  They are my sanctuary, my true home, my foundation.  When I look at them, I see the support and love simply glitters through them while giving me that institution filled with soul, diversity and acceptance.  They really did well in their dealt roles.  All of this brings me to melancholy, a term overly described in every artistic form.  It borders with sadness and happiness, concurrently.  Melancholy represents an eluding state of reality experienced through the deepest emotions and it is omnipresent never failing to linger in the background.  Melancholy also attributes vastly to the in-between state where no one is truly sad, and no one is truly happy; there is simply life without unnecessary kitsch decorated by vane illusions and fantasies.  

An Attempt To Describe The State of In-between

The best metaphor for life of in-betweeners can be visually depicted once a year for only a few days, perhaps a week when thawing, stale snow, stained by the discoloration of natural circumstances, undergoes metamorphosis due the attacks of relenting, fierce sun rays.  Such transformation represents a type of belonging somewhere, a spot to call own even if for a couple of days. Yet, for this one week or so, I feel at home as the sun attacks the residues of snow patches spread out on the sidewalks touched by the burden of cold days, while dissipating into forgetting.  But that state of transition includes the elements of all encompassing natural elements where two opposing phenomena coexist in a constant change unified in their differences and contradictions.  From a solid, to a liquid and to a vapor state, the transformation occurs so vividly and noticeably allowing me to revive my in-betweeness.  In more theoretical terms, I exist and sway amid two worlds constantly at odds, falling through cracks of society.  I write for those who are labeled as exiles, immigrants, vagabonds, gypsies and other wandering souls who are constantly searching for their own corner in this world while trying to tackle the existence of stuck in-between. 

In today's world, the exchange of ideas and experiences, one tends to be exposed to multitude of ideologies sorting them out according to one's own lenses.  When a child is born into already formed set of beliefs and traditions, he/she is molded according to the parental principles and/or societal norms.  Subsequently, the world views are formed based on formative suggestions where a child is equipped with a well of resources with references on how to respond to the environment.  However, with the increased mobility, particularly spatial movements, people tend to uproot from their comfortable, conventional ways of processing information and explore wittingly or not, a different approach to life.  Especially, when children are moved form one culture into another, the adaptability is accelerated and becomes more natural than to a formed individual and/or an adult.  What follows is additional layer of groundwork into infantile mind that teaches a child that adjusting and acclimating is the only source of survival while in the long run it undermines the original roots.  Sometimes, the exposure to the contradictory cultures creates a void or that particular in-betweeness where one has to create an individual set of norms and values in the direct opposition with everything one holds or sees as the ultimate truth.  So, this constant change leaves a lot of confusion behind because  a contradictory behavior has negative connotation but are we not as humans at constant odds with ourselves?

Many would argue that this is a process of every individual going through a path of his/her own definitions of culture or life.  This statement carries weight however, it lacks the level of discovery and necessity to accept external influences.  As people age, they tend to stop rebelling and conform to societal norms in order to make peace with the world.  They put an end to fighting unnecessary and petty struggles and accept life for what it is.  But when one is exposed to two conflicting cultures, one always remains in between never truly belonging anywhere but within the void. Finding a place resembling that abyss between two mountains is probably the most complicated quest of uncovering something truly unique, a path never walked before.  How are we to pave the road in that hollowness?