Roots and Routes

During the time life was altered by the pandemic, I think about roots and routes.

Home, comfort, food, touch, care, freedom, earth. These are some of the words that I can immediately associate with ‘roots’ and ‘routes’, coincident with life at the moment. I am one of the people who have left their ‘home’ in pursuit of dreams, careers and curiosity. Now I contemplate where home is, where one would go in a few months as residence permits expire, and where one would be spreading roots.

I light a cigarette on my balcony, thinking about our roots and routes. I felt the warm sun on my face, a sun that makes a guest appearance once in a while. I observe plants in yoghurt buckets, and one in particular, the passion fruit plant which in its own journey to this balcony in East Helsinki reflects the moving people of the world.

Roots of the passion fruit plant, crammed into a giant yoghurt tub for the last two years, new shoots taking birth each spring and inching everyday towards the sky, leaning on the railing in anticipation of stability and support.

I hear the baby wail in the flat next door. Last year around this time I accidentally heard the African couple discuss their displeasure of having to leave their home country. You see, the voices travel through open windows, gliding to the ears. And this year they have made a baby, someone who takes their roots in Finland, to grow into a human.

(This text was written during Nexo creative Writing workshop that went on to be published in their online fanzine. You can read mine and other beautiful texts from fellow participants here: https://nexo2.netlify.app/routes
Nexo is a writing group based in Helsinki, Finland. It brings together people who are beginning to search their identity as writers, or seek for a sense of community in their creative work).