Reflections on Belonging

I don’t know who or what I am. I used to think I was a plant. Not the kind that burrows its roots into the soil of an old farmstead and feeds off the lifeblood of its ancestors, but a plant in a flower pot that a fickle housewife constantly moves from the window sill […]

Oh, to belong. I see a little girl hugging a Sunshine Family doll that is a flat-chested mom (the doll comes complete with a husband, two children and a house) while the little girl’s friends dance their leggy Barbies with their impossible boobs and stiletto-ready feet closer to the Ken dolls that are packaged separately.

Some time ago I wrote an essay called Už konteksto ribų (Outside of Context), where I wrote about the freedom of writers (and humans in general) and about ‘belonging’ to a context as both a good thing and a problem. Today, I’d title that essay Tarp kontekstų—Between Contexts. Although that’s the same thing. I believe

I am a furious code-switcher. When you are comfortable in two or more languages, code-switching comes naturally. As you seek to express yourself in one language, but know that the person you are addressing is also multilingual, your subconscious mind scans your inner vocabulary, picking and choosing the perfect word to convey exactly what you

“Language is the home of being”—I don’t remember what grade it was in which we had to write an essay under this title. I no longer remember what I wrote, only that this topic overwhelmed me, as I see now, for a long time. Still a child, I was tormented by a question which I

Back to Sappho: Not War on Love, but Love as War “What would change if women ruled the world?” Recently, in Warsaw, in the context of a discussion with writers and journalists from the countries of Central Europe, I had to respond to that question. I remember how puzzled I was with the word “ruled.”

The Ardennes horse weighs 1,000 kilograms, which is a ton. Currently, I feel as if such horse had accidentally squashed me. It is so heavy! As heavy on my chest is the task of describing my difficult experience as a Lithuanian immigrant in Belgium—which I can’t do. I can’t. I don’t know how. I don’t

1. It’s been a year since I came back to where I belong, and to my surprise I find myself longing for a country I don’t belong to. I just spent ten years in it. My friends ask me why am I missing it—where does this longing come from? This country didn’t accept you, and

“What impression could have possibly been made by just a pair of shoes and a pipe?” What? “Lithuania had terrible luck because the band’s instruments and traditional costumes were lost on the way.” What—a naked pipe player represented Lithuania at an international exhibition? No, not naked, just not wearing the traditional costume, therefore failing to

I was in a taxi on my way to the Vilnius book fair last winter when the driver looked in the rear-view mirror and asked me if there was any particular book I could recommend. He was an old-school cab driver, grizzled and speaking with an accent. Polish? Russian? Hard to tell. No other cab