Autumn Leaves
 

     Culture surrounded her everywhere she went.
 

     Everyone had to have something to belong to: a type of food, a tradition, a style of dress. Walking down the busy Toronto street in the middle of September, she could see at least five restaurants from around the world. Thai, Persian, Chinese, French. And of course, there was a Tim Hortons at every corner.

     But she never felt as though she belonged completely to any culture. She’d lived in the middle east for the first five years of her life, then spent nine in the south of Africa. Now she was here in Canada. Middle, South, North. Three very different lifetimes. Three very different cultures. And although her parents were Persian, she could never understand that culture as well as they did. Most of it she knew from long-ago visits or friendly gatherings where everyone spoke of things they loved and missed about a culture that to her felt like a half-forgotten memory.

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     In South Africa, she’d been lost amidst a torrent of unique worlds, none of which resembled her own, whatever her own was. Of course, she’d loved the afternoon barbecues they called ‘braais’ or the intense passions with which everyone followed rugby games, but it was a borrowed culture and not one she knew for long enough before they moved again.

     Canada held its own special blend of cultures from everyone who had laid their roots down on its frosty soil. Walking down the street, she didn’t feel like she’d found her roots. She felt like a leaf, drifting loosely through the wind.

     But then she noticed the people. Hundreds of them were walking the same street on the same autumn morning. They all looked different. Had different ways of life and different thoughts. Yet, how many of them felt the same emotions? They probably all cried to a sad movie or laughed with their friends or hated getting out of their warm beds in the morning. They were all humans.

     They were all leaves. And instead of looking at the bare trees the leaves had left behind, it was better to look at the beautiful tapestry they made when they fell on the ground in their shimmering colors. She didn’t need to belong to one culture. Maybe it was better to borrow a little from everywhere she went. Get some fresh naan in the mornings. Timbits for lunch. Braai meat for supper. Culture was only meaningful when there was a lot of it. 

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     So, it was just as well that culture surrounded her, everywhere she went.