Les Nouvelles Eve

How simple!
All I have to do is close my eyes and I'm free of all pressures. 
Plunged into a saving darkness, a light brings me back to what's essential, what I am, a woman.
Yes, just a woman, and this temporary break with the rest of the world is a piece of land that only my spirit can tread. This land is that of my ancestors. Buried deep in my heart, it transports me to the soil of my origins. 
I walk peacefully along a path of ochre earth, my mind recalling my games of yesterday, my laughter and all the joys of my childhood. My village, my grandparents, all the women busy preparing the meal are there. Magically, as if I'd really gone back there, I feel as if the sun is warming my skin. My mind, on the contrary, floats and settles in the protective shade of the trees, in the cool space where we could shout, move and have fun without being too overcome by the heat. 
I'm back to being that little girl whose ears no longer ring with insults and bird names. I'm a lively little girl again, with no more malice hanging over my shoulders or my steps. I hear the muffled cry they should all hear: “I'm just like you, my skin color doesn't make humans different, I have a heart too, and it's wide open”. 
My mother, now gone, strokes my face again and my father carries me on his shoulders to take me on an adventure. How lucky I was to receive so much love. Until I arrived in this new country, in this land of a thousand promises so much vaunted by rumors, all I had on my face were the features of all the love received from one another. 
Reopening my eyes is never easy. It's as if I were constantly throwing myself into a well at the bottom of which all the colors of happiness disappear or become darker. Before commanding my eyelids to open, I take a long, hard breath. I send the little girl back to her dream life and get ready to put on the narrow costume of the stranger. I watch her go. She carries everything that my skin color shouldn't prevent, the desire to love, to embrace, to take life like this little girl, head on... 
I count to three and go back...
 
Unfortunately, I have no choice.

Stéphane Théri