Who am I? Where am I from?

I am not one person. I am not from one place.

My body and brain contain a combination of characters – a lead and many supporting. My personality shifts and morphs depending on where I am and who I’m with. The longer I know someone, the more I change. I transform into another person. It’s still me. But a different me. Closer to me.

I am quiet. I am loud. I am weird. I am normal. I am mysterious. I am an open book. I don’t choose which of me I will be for you. There is no selection process. I am a mood ring. Shifting through shades with every finger that slips me on.

Some people make me feel alive, others drain me. There is a mix of everyone I’ve ever met inside me. With many, I swear. With some, I don’t talk. And occasionally I’ll mirror. It’s confusing. And try as I might, I can’t summon a specific character on demand. I need a cable box for my characters. A button to press to order the desired channel.

Sometimes pieces of me combine with others without warning. I’ll have a moment of obscenity, of wildness, with someone who only knows me as timid, coy, conservative. It is immediately followed by silence, awkwardness, and embarrassment. Like a teenage boy’s voice that cracks, testing its new-found deepness. That transition period from introverted to outgoing is riddled with missteps.

I am only really me when I’m alone. When all my characters come out to play. They are friends and foes. They play nicely and bicker. But they are mine. And I am theirs. And I like them, most of them. Perhaps one day I’ll tame them into obedience. Whistle and they will come.

“There comes a time when all that remains for us to do is to surrender to the idiosyncrasies of our nature.”
? Floriano Martins

Then there are all those places.

I clearly remember standing in my third grade classroom in New York, American flag before me, mouthing the pledge of allegiance every morning. No way was I going to actually say the words aloud. No way was I giving myself to a country. Not just one, anyway. Besides, my British accent said it all. Not American.

And then we moved to Canada. Back to the country of my birth. Free of allegiance. Maybe.

O Canada was soon introduced. Another act of nationalism. More lyrics to learn. I didn’t sing at my first assembly at school. Not at the second one either. “I just moved here from America, don’t you know.” And, “I’m not really Canadian. Last year I had a British accent.” And, “We’ll probably move again soon.” The excuses I told myself. American or British or Canadian when convenient. I was a brat. And we didn’t move.

I did learn the words to O Canada though. I am proud to be a citizen. I am Canadian by passport, by birth, by taxes, by appreciation for the country. But I don’t want to belong to one country. I want to collect a passport for each one. So far, I’m only at two.

The labyrinth streets of Rome feel like mine. All of Britain is part of me. The salty air of Melbourne has a permanent place in my lungs. And photos of Morocco, India, Africa seem so familiar – perhaps they are my homes too. I’ve retained a portion of each place I’ve been inside me and they’re housed next to empty cubbyholes waiting to be filled with the essence of those I haven’t yet visited. Must I only say one place when someone asks where I’m from? Perhaps I’ll just say Earth.

I’d rather there not be borders. I’d like it if we all became neighbours. I would pay a tax to the world. And I know we all have the same characters somewhere inside, waiting for their moments.

“I am neither I nor the other one
I am something in between”
? Mário de Sá-Carneiro

World in watercolour by Jessica Durrant.<