Note · No. 04 · 5 min
Raised in Russia, born in Canada
On a childhood that never quite settled.
I was born in a country I don’t remember and raised in one that never fully claimed me. The passport said one thing; the playground said another. Somewhere between the two I stopped trying to belong to a place and started belonging to the movement between them.
For a long time I thought this was a wound to be healed — that one day I’d find the town, the table, the version of home everyone else seemed to have. I don’t think that anymore. The not-settling is the inheritance. It’s the thing that makes me reach for the next road instead of dreading it.
Born there, raised elsewhere, always going somewhere. I’ve made my peace with the comma in the middle. The journey, after all, is all that matters.