When You Know Every Stone |
There is a moment in life when you realise that the place you were born is not the place where your soul belongs. People today identify as all sorts of things. Some identify as another gender, some as animals, some even as eternal babies. Humanity is a strange species with an endless imagination. So I decided to embrace my own identity as well. I identify as transgeographical, born in the wrong country.
Because if I am honest, I never truly lived in the Netherlands. I survived it. The climate has been a lifelong enemy, triggering asthma and bronchitis from childhood onward. The mentality never suited me either. In the Netherlands you must be careful not to stand out. If you are different, you become a target for bullying or judgment. The landscape never touched my heart. Endless flat fields, grey skies, cities that smell of pollution and dampness. I never felt rooted there. My heart never settled.
But Israel did what no other country ever managed to do. No matter how many places I visited, only Israel felt like home. The dry climate never........