{"id":1295,"date":"2015-01-01T02:37:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T09:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2018-01-09T14:58:07","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T21:58:07","slug":"a-nation-united-in-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/a-nation-united-in-tears\/","title":{"rendered":"A nation united in tears"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"My<\/a>
My oldest travel companion…draped over another hostel, another hotel room.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every time I’m in Catalunya I’m taken over by a sense awe, an awe at\u00c2\u00a0the flags draping from every balcony, from every home, and from every\u00c2\u00a0corner. It is intoxicating to see flags that are the same as my own. \u00c2\u00a0It is exhilarating… and so I\u00c2\u00a0understand the Catalans’ unnerving feeling at seeing a flag not quite their\u00c2\u00a0own etched on their passport, but having no say in the matter. \u00c2\u00a0I understand them. I feel them. \u00c2\u00a0Because even though these words come\u00c2\u00a0out in English, my heart knows no other language but Spanish.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But this weekend, I got my wish while watching Monica Puig’s tennis match (coincidentally\u00c2\u00a0of Catalan grandparents), claiming Puerto Rico’s first ever Olympic gold. I got to see,\u00c2\u00a0albeit on a tiny laptop screen, a stadium full of flags and screaming\u00c2\u00a0fans who were told repeatedly by the referee to quiet down. I got to\u00c2\u00a0hear the raucous screams from one end of the stadium chanting\u00c2\u00a0“Boricua”, while the other end responded with “pa’ que tu lo sepas”\u00c2\u00a0(“just so you know”), and the ensuing laughs and smiles that are characteristic when Puertoricans get together. I got to see a\u00c2\u00a0nation united and proud, putting aside differences, and forgetting a\u00c2\u00a0fiscal cliff that’s defined us for far too long, and eclipsing yet\u00c2\u00a0another year of frustrating politics.<\/p>\n

This weekend, while watching the nerve wrecking match, I\u00c2\u00a0uncontrollably sobbed. I cried throughout the game. I sobbed at its\u00c2\u00a0fascinating conclusion. I cried, unable to understand why a world\u00c2\u00a0traveler such as myself, claiming nothing as permanent, would have\u00c2\u00a0such an ingrained inexplicable emotional attachment to a tiny island– an \u00c2\u00a0island lost at sea and engulfed by an empire. But it was there that I\u00c2\u00a0knew without the shadow of a doubt that I may travel the world, but I\u00c2\u00a0know where I belong. There is a minuscule piece of earth where my\u00c2\u00a0heart inevitably returns. It’s a place like no other, where the\u00c2\u00a0people are kind and friendships are a life long affair. A place,\u00c2\u00a0that would it not exist, I would desperately search my entire life for\u00c2\u00a0a place to lay my heart and claim as my own. Fortunately it does\u00c2\u00a0exist, and it makes coming home that much sweeter.<\/p>\n

My soul is a wandering one, but its compass can always point home… wherever I may roam.<\/p>\n

p.s. But in the meantime, there’s the rest of the world to see! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every time I’m in Catalunya I’m taken over by a sense awe, an awe at\u00c2\u00a0the flags draping from every balcony, from every home, and from every\u00c2\u00a0corner. It is intoxicating to see flags that are the same as my own. \u00c2\u00a0It is exhilarating… and so I\u00c2\u00a0understand the Catalans’ unnerving feeling at seeing a flag not quite … Continue reading A nation united in tears<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1307,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions\/1307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}