Senior year of high school, about a year and a half ago, one of my teachers asked what being half-Greek-Cypriot meant to me. It's funny, because it sounds like one of those college application essays. I want to talk about it here because I don't ever feel like I've fleshed out these thoughts, or the thoughts of why I actually do love my parents (despite the neglect I blame them for).
Let's see here. Greek Cypriotness is a small percentage of the global landscape and doesn't have a very high coefficient of pride when I travel places. No one's even heard of the island itself; of course they don't know the difference between being Greek-Cypriot or Turkish-Cypriot, or just plain Greek or Turkish.
Why do I feel so proud of being born in the place and having family there? I certainly can't attribute any part of a childhood happiness to the nation, as I've never lived there permanently. Vacations were enjoyable, yes, but not a part of my permanent mind-set. I don't speak the language, which is often a great source of pride for certain national-types.
One might think I take a selfish sort of pride in the half-ethnicity because it just sets me apart a little from everybody else. Maybe it's just something that justifies my having an awkward, abnormal at least, nose.
And you would be right. I like to feel a little bit removed from the general population; I like to think I have more than one place to call home. I like having an eccentric father that I can't bring out in public because he's just never understood.
Most of the time, all I feel is a knowledge of where I came from. I feel like it explains me better. Perhaps my eccentricities, but they can easily be explained by my dad and my mom. It's more of knowing that there's some place in the world I can go and be welcome. A second home maybe.
I like to feel that a part of me dates back to the ages of antiquity. I am Greek, the greatest of all heritages! The source of knowledge, beginning the endless pursuit of its rusty knobs (wanting to be cleaned). I am the great-granddaughter of Alexander the Great, the great-niece of the ancient philosophers. My sister is the woman who's face launched a thousand ships.
Yes, I fantasize, but it's something that allows for a concrete definition of myself, more than anything else ever has. For all this I am proud to be from some tiny little vacation island in the Mediterranean.
cypricate. wordplay!
ReplyDeletevery interesting. I find that for some reason I have an awkward pride of Irish heritage, that really isn't Irish heritage. I more just have a pride of being born from my father's family, who happened to be Irish at some point.
But which teacher, btdub?
And quietquietgrayson was meant for different things. and noisynoisybailey was taken.