the plant from brazil.

Over a sunny morning in Lisbon, someone told me that, somewhere in NY, in a sort of Botanical Garden, they try to preserve, at all costs, a rare plant, originally from Brazil. It was taken from Brazil to the USA and it changed with the geographical change. The leaves became gigantic and this plant became one of a kind, that came from Brazil but it’s neither from Brazil anymore nor from the USA. The botanical researchers in the Garden take care of this plant with admiration, this extremely special plant, taken from its place, its home, a plant that is now giant, in a limbo between something and nothing.

Over the same morning, someone told me about her difficulty of living between NY, Berlin and Lisbon. I remembered my past easiness to adapt everywhere. I would say, proudly, that my home was precisely as far as it could be from my actual home, somewhere in between different and – to me – unknown places. As the plant from Brazil in the USA, I have also changed with my relocations and feel each slight change with tachycardia. As the plant, I have also changed but maybe to much smaller than I once was.

image by Nat Urazmetova
thoughts by Luisa Santos