mi patria.

i remember the first moment that my timid feet met foreign soil (or i guess foreign airport concreted earth). i remember the taste of the thai air and the smell of the bangkoked world. i remember wishing for my own bit of language & markets & beaches that helped me know who i am.

i remember being asked what my culture was when i sank into cuban sand and soaked up varadero breeze. i remember being wordless, and aching for some sort of colorado salsa to answer the rhythms of their freed hips or some bouldered cuisine to challenge their cassava dreams.

now i can remember when i realized that i can create my very own cultured existence.

my culture is dancing til i'm salted and red by face. my culture is baking yams with a bit of yeast & flour. my culture is plunging mountain streams/rivers/lakes with their snow melt shock. my culture is whatever i decide to say it is each day i wake.

so now i know that my patria is mine for the making; never will i identify with fast food chains and semi-trucks and monolingualism, i'll keep dreaming up something more interesting.