Identity

I stopped trying to decide which place made me who I am when I realised none of them had asked for exclusive rights. #

I was speaking Italian to Mom tonight while standing in our Amsterdam kitchen and after we hung up I realised I had been looking out of the window at a Dutch street while thinking in a mixture of Italian and English, with a Dutch word sitting in the middle because it happened to fit better. This is apparently my brain now. For years I thought living abroad would eventually produce a clear identity statement. I would become an Italian living in the Netherlands, or an expat, or an immigrant, or European, or some other neat phrase that could explain the whole arrangement. None of them feels wrong exactly. None feels sufficient. Mostly I am Alice. That answer has become less evasive with age. Italy is inside me in ways Amsterdam cannot remove because Amsterdam never tried. Milano formed so much of my adult beginning. Genova is Dad, sea, focaccia, boats, Sunday, family geography that existed before I had words for geography. Mom is Milano and Angel perfume and elegance and the tone of voice that can still make me check whether I am dressed warmly enough at thirty. Dad is Genova and practical questions and Sampdoria appearing sooner or later. Yuri belongs to the timeline so early that separating him from my adult identity would require surgery. Hikari belongs there too, even in absence. Amsterdam came later and did not ask anybody to leave. It added bicycles to my body. Dutch words to my head. Crooked floors to my definition of home. Work in English. Canals in the background of errands. King’s Day in April. Sinterklaas in winter. The reflex of checking for bicycles before stepping anywhere. The knowledge that eight degrees and sunlight will cause terraces to fill. None of that makes me less Italian. It makes me somebody who has lived. Perhaps identity becomes easier when I stop treating it as purity. I am not supposed to remain chemically identical to the woman who arrived in 2011. What would be the point of moving through years without allowing them to leave evidence. Even my playlists prove contamination is healthy. Hardcore beside country, Britney beside Nosferatu, Dolly beside electronic music, all of it making perfect sense only because it is mine. I used to worry contradictions meant I had not figured myself out. Now I think contradictions are often the most accurate parts. Blonde woman in lipstick listening to hardcore. Italian woman cycling through Amsterdam while mentally planning pasta. Skeptic who loves rituals. Person who loves code and perfume equally. Woman completely happy here who still misses home. All true. Tonight after Mom’s call I sprayed Angel on my wrist because talking to her had made me think of it. Yuri came into the kitchen, smelled it and said, «You.» He has associated that perfume with me for so long that Mom’s scent became mine through inheritance of memory. That may be identity too. Things passed between people until origin becomes impossible to separate from continuation. I am sitting here smelling faintly of Angel while Dutch voices rise from the street below. Nothing needs choosing.

Remember me, Eclipse.