Saturday, July 04, 2009

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...Happy 4th of July!!!

Photo:
 Anna Strock


It was the morning of Christmas day, December 25th 1999.
The first day I stepped on American land - Chicago, Illinois.
The fatigue from my first transatlantic flight, an almost sleepless Christmas night at Frankfurt's airport, all the worried thoughts about what I left behind and what was ahead...it all vanished into the crispy air of a glorious sunny day - my first day in America!
'Like everyone who travels towards a new life in a land they've never seen, I wondered how much of me would survive the crossing, how translatable I would be.
...
Every migration is an opportunity and a kind of death. The new world may be rich and strange, but you're somehow weightless in it.
...
The freedom to be weightless here gave us all, I felt, en masse, a paradoxal solidity.' ... I can't agree more with Rob Nixon (Dreambirds).
Nine and a half years later...I am celebrating my first Independence Day as a citizen of the United States of America! And I feel very happy about it!
Happy 4th of July!