692 days ago
I found a fantastic book by François Laplantine (French anthropologist, based in Lyon) - "Transatlantic" and I realized that my dream of America never involved its Northern nor Central part, but the South, that to me was mythical and distant, almost a parallel world, filled with mystery, thrill, magic. Although I decided to immigrate to Canada, its beautiful large spaces, deep green forests and immense lakes never attracted me like the lush tropical beauty of Amazonia, the glacial and windy Patagonia, the samba wild rythms or the nostalgy and sensuality of the tango.
I guess it all started with Jules Verne and its travel novels. The fascination for Latin America and India. It went on with the Latin American writers: Garcia Marquez, Borges, Llosa, Alejo Carpentier, Reinaldo Arenas, Bioy Casares, Isabel Allende, Jorge Amado.
My American dream never involved a better life in a secure industrialized country, but colourful, often poor neighbourhoods, strange animals, huge flowers, lively music and magical reality, like the literature that charmed me. Something beyond imagination and sometimes unbearable.
My America is the other America, the one I have inside me, the dark side to explore, where contrasts and excess are the only characteristic, the rest is open to all possibilities.
Maybe I"ll get there next year, there's such a narrow bridge between a Yes and a No. A few thousand dollars.
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