December 23, 2010 – My Tara

December 23, 2010 – My Tara After chasing what she believed to be the reason for her existence – the love of Ashley -, Scarlett finally remembered what her true love Rhett had told her: “Go back to Tara”, her land. Scarlett had gone far from the place where she used to be happy and powerful. All the effort to gain Ashley’s heart, Scarlett had left behind everything that made her what she used to be, including her self-worth, dignity, and even her own identity. In this path, her man was gone with the wind. She had lost everything, but her land, the source of all energy and goodness. The film ends at this point, with a hint that Scarlett would go back to Tara – the beautiful farm in Georgia devasted by the Civil War – that needed to be rebuilt, recovered, made fertile, and prosperous. To “go back to Tara” is an allegoric idea that we should go back to our origins in search of those broken roots, in an attempt to make ourselves whole again. A place for healing. It was not the idea of “back -to -the -land”, where the soil would replenish her lost self. The farm, actually, never played any important role, but a place named Tara. I don’t know how much this scene played on my mind. This was one of my favorite films of all times, having watched at the age of 16, and many more times throughout my life. It seems that it was unavoidable that Scarlett would follow the path of losing everything and everyone she loved because she was chasing one single love, which ended up rejecting her. Subconsciously, I may have thought that my father’s farm is my Tara. So that I brought my daughter and myself here. I wanted her to have space and time necessary to grow up healthy with an unlimited thinking mind. Place where all her talents and intelligence could be prepared to some time flourish. And I needed a place and time to heal myself. Tara is a healing place. We all must have a place such as this. A retreat to ourselves. The time that I have been spending on my parents’ farm was, indeed, for my own healing and recovery. Had gone through a divorce and losing everything material and immaterial - except my daughter, who is still under my care - I felt dilapidated. In the end, I had nothing to offer. So, I was famished for love and care. And, I went in search of it… I moved from one country to another, chasing a spark of blissful love, hoping that it would turn into a lasting bonfire. There is no such thing as a lasting bonfire between humans. Passion is an energy that makes us feel alive, that in its unforgiving way, we are consumed by it. Passion is the fire we set to ourselves, just to be burned into ashes! When I looked around, only ashes I found. Even ashes of myself. How to gather thin ashes scattered on the ground? Somehow I did. And I came back to my parents’ farm. Two years have passed. I sincerely thought that I was happy. I was at peace, this is true. I believed I was honoring my parents by caring for them. Doing what God had asked me to do. I have given names to the lifestyle I was leading: organic farming, voluntary simplicity, back-to-the-land, back to basics. But the truth is that even though, they are a reality in my current life, I am living a lie.