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INTERSECTIONS: REFLECTIONS ON A RETURN TO THE HOMELAND
Glendale News Press, CA
June 25 2014
By Liana Aghajanian
June 25, 2014 | 3:54 p.m.
After three years away, I am back in Armenia, writing to you from a
fourth-floor balcony overlooking a city perpetually caught between
East and West.
Warm winds have overtaken the capital, Yerevan, in the last few days,
but they are stirring up more than the dust left behind by construction
taking place across the city.
This is a place where your memories and ideas about "homeland" are
convoluted and blown away, scattered among the high-rise buildings
growing taller and taller by the day.
This is a place where you realize "homeland" is often best kept
within the confines of nostalgia and neatly framed paintings hanging
in dining rooms across Los Angeles.
I can come here over and over again, and every time, it isn't just
the 12-hour time difference or overwhelming dry heat to which I
must adjust.
It is the fact that this is a country, not a concept -- a thought
that perhaps hits home when the heavy door of an apartment complex
opens and the cool air comes rushing back at you, trapped within
seven flights of stairs you must climb in pitch-black darkness.
It is the fact that reality is hard not to overlook here when you
visit the police station to see the activists who protested rising
electricity prices being let out one by one after being brutally
taken away by police earlier in the day.
It is the corner fruit grocer, the one that keeps a goldfish tank above
the cash register enticing you with several varieties of apricots,
the ones you completely devour before you even get halfway up the
street, slicing them open with your bare hands as the juice drips on
your shoes.
It is sitting in a pub called "Heisenberg" completely modeled off
the brilliant series "Breaking Bad," with the chemical formula for
methamphetamine painted on the wall.
Homeland carries more weight than just a geographical location. It
is the longing to discover and rediscover, the need to relate and
even the realization that sometimes there are more differences,
more stark realities than we like to admit.
Homeland is the place where you grew up, the place next door to the
country you're in now, the one where you were born and the one you
fear you may never get to visit. It is sometimes all of these things
combined, too.
And then, it's also coming to the realization that sometimes the
concept of homeland isn't in the places we set foot in at 3 a.m.,
bleary-eyed and worn out, attempting to climb into the back seat of
a lovely blue Lada.
It's the space in between -- the need to go, to escape, that unsettled
feeling that the most comfortable space you can find is the one in
which you're moving. This is a mark of the immigrant experience --
especially the Armenian one, where a defining characteristic of our
collective history seems to always encompass the necessity or desire
to keep moving on.
So I've come to the Caucasus for the summer, unsure of what brought me
here. Perhaps it was longing to learn about myself and others just a
little bit more. Or perhaps it was that intrinsic need to leave and
land in a place long enough to feel the need to move on again.
--
LIANA AGHAJANIAN is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose work has
appeared in L.A. Weekly, Paste magazine, New America Media, Eurasianet
and The Atlantic.
http://www.glendalenewspress.com/opinion/columnists/liana-aghajanian/tn-gnp-intersections-reflections-on-a-return-to-the-homeland-20140625,0,4979131.story
Glendale News Press, CA
June 25 2014
By Liana Aghajanian
June 25, 2014 | 3:54 p.m.
After three years away, I am back in Armenia, writing to you from a
fourth-floor balcony overlooking a city perpetually caught between
East and West.
Warm winds have overtaken the capital, Yerevan, in the last few days,
but they are stirring up more than the dust left behind by construction
taking place across the city.
This is a place where your memories and ideas about "homeland" are
convoluted and blown away, scattered among the high-rise buildings
growing taller and taller by the day.
This is a place where you realize "homeland" is often best kept
within the confines of nostalgia and neatly framed paintings hanging
in dining rooms across Los Angeles.
I can come here over and over again, and every time, it isn't just
the 12-hour time difference or overwhelming dry heat to which I
must adjust.
It is the fact that this is a country, not a concept -- a thought
that perhaps hits home when the heavy door of an apartment complex
opens and the cool air comes rushing back at you, trapped within
seven flights of stairs you must climb in pitch-black darkness.
It is the fact that reality is hard not to overlook here when you
visit the police station to see the activists who protested rising
electricity prices being let out one by one after being brutally
taken away by police earlier in the day.
It is the corner fruit grocer, the one that keeps a goldfish tank above
the cash register enticing you with several varieties of apricots,
the ones you completely devour before you even get halfway up the
street, slicing them open with your bare hands as the juice drips on
your shoes.
It is sitting in a pub called "Heisenberg" completely modeled off
the brilliant series "Breaking Bad," with the chemical formula for
methamphetamine painted on the wall.
Homeland carries more weight than just a geographical location. It
is the longing to discover and rediscover, the need to relate and
even the realization that sometimes there are more differences,
more stark realities than we like to admit.
Homeland is the place where you grew up, the place next door to the
country you're in now, the one where you were born and the one you
fear you may never get to visit. It is sometimes all of these things
combined, too.
And then, it's also coming to the realization that sometimes the
concept of homeland isn't in the places we set foot in at 3 a.m.,
bleary-eyed and worn out, attempting to climb into the back seat of
a lovely blue Lada.
It's the space in between -- the need to go, to escape, that unsettled
feeling that the most comfortable space you can find is the one in
which you're moving. This is a mark of the immigrant experience --
especially the Armenian one, where a defining characteristic of our
collective history seems to always encompass the necessity or desire
to keep moving on.
So I've come to the Caucasus for the summer, unsure of what brought me
here. Perhaps it was longing to learn about myself and others just a
little bit more. Or perhaps it was that intrinsic need to leave and
land in a place long enough to feel the need to move on again.
--
LIANA AGHAJANIAN is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose work has
appeared in L.A. Weekly, Paste magazine, New America Media, Eurasianet
and The Atlantic.
http://www.glendalenewspress.com/opinion/columnists/liana-aghajanian/tn-gnp-intersections-reflections-on-a-return-to-the-homeland-20140625,0,4979131.story