Twenty years ago I passed through the train station in Budapest, Hungary. My family and I were escaping the civil strife that left my country divided, fragmented and completely devastated. Today, I saw the images of Syrian refugees roaming around the same space as we did so many years ago attempting to reach som foreign country. Strange how things coincide. Insecurity along with the fear of the unknown lingers in those tracks. The steel tracks carry the inhibitions and hopes for what is about to unravel. Especially, when a child enters this sphere of unpredictability, the reality becomes altered and forever layered. Do the halls of the station show the scars of our childlish fears??
The images reminded me of crossroads of life; a space where the destination is not reached, where the limbo becomes the safest zone. I never really put much thought into this station, it was just a distant memory, but now I want to find out where this in-between room is, what it really is, whose name it carries. All of those people running away from broken homes in hopes of stability walk through the same halls as we did, waiting for the trains with unmarked tickets to take them somewhere else, some place safe.
A refugee - an escapee - a runner - a fleeter - in a search for "home". Two decades later, two foreign lands away, I still linger in the same station in Budapest. How symbolic life can be!!!
A refugee - an escapee - a runner - a fleeter - in a search for "home". Two decades later, two foreign lands away, I still linger in the same station in Budapest. How symbolic life can be!!!
I wonder if I will ever find my way back to the streets of Budapest. Those Hungarian winters where the thoughts freeze and remain solidified into ice cubes of immobility, will remain within me. Yet, the train approaches the station and we aimlessly board it without glancing back on this layover that took place at the specific time, in a particular place.
I hope that they will find a spot where they can root into the soil and rediscover the meaning of safety. I sincerely wish for their well being for I know what they feel. Particularly, the children whose childhoods came to an abrupt end. They will become in-betweeners, just like I did. Soon enough they will discover the meaning of nostalgia where melancholy resides ubiquitously every day of their lives. They will be exposed to new ways of existing; they will supersede their parents' thinking; their mentalities will be molded as they learn that every new day requires adaptability - an assimilation just to get through the day, to get ahead. Yet, all of us will always remain stuck at that station for the rest of our days. We will wonder what would have happened if we mounted a different train. Sometimes we will perplex about the possibilities of heading back to the place that breathes our names, the place where our footsteps are imprinted on the streets as scars. Still, we will always stay in Budapest while trying to find a corner to call our own. My dear in-betweeners, we are thrusted onto the tracks of forced choices that were never truly ours.
One day, I will find out the name of the train station in Budapest.
