I - Nomad

Today the sun is shining bright, a quite unusual event when it comes to Leeds, England.

            Many students rejoice under this most rare but equally welcome guest on this early summer day, coffee or beer in hand. Although a few stragglers still have their last exams ahead of them, to the majority this day represents a well-deserved rest after a whole year of gruelling work.

              The setting is the terrace bar, one of the two pubs in the Leeds Student Union, located at the heart of the main campus of the University of Leeds, one of England’s most respected universities. A quick look at the faces of the many students in the bar reveals a number of different origins. This is a global university that attracts students from many different nations from the four corners of the world.

            One of these students is the main character of our story. Twenty-four-year-old Leonardo.  He struts through the bar bearing a smile full of pride. He can’t help it - he just finished the last exam of his academic life. If everything goes according to plan, this is it; he has ceased to be a student and is now officially a graduate.

            At the bar he orders a celebratory pint of Guinness. Usually he would stick to ordering something on the cheaper side: a pint of Fosters or Carslberg, or maybe even a Latte or a glass of cranberry juice, since it’s barely past eleven-thirty. Today, though, is not just any other day. Today is the happiest day of his life thus far. After years of hard work he has finally done it: he graduated! He’s still not sure about what comes next, how he’ll earn a living, where he is going to live… but none of that matters now. The important thing is that the exams are over, there are no more essays to be handed in and he can have his Guinness under the sun and relax for the first time in weeks.  

            On the terrace, he sends a quick text: ‘I’m done dude. Meet me at the Terrace when you can.’ He takes a sip of his dark beer and feels his whole body unwind. The beer feels good and cold inside; he’s relaxed now, but his wrists are still tired from all the writing. His last exam was Meta-ethics. ‘As much as I’ll miss you, meta-ethics, you were a pain in the ass to finish,’ he thought.  His degree is Politics and Philosophy, a thinker’s degree. It suits him. Leonardo is not a pragmatic person; he never has been. He has always been a thinker, an idealist at heart. Deep down there is only one thing that he wants to do next with his life, the thing he has always wanted to do: make the world a better place.  Yes, it may sound cheesy, but it’s what would give his life meaning. He doesn’t know how to do that, though, and that’s the problem.  He shakes that thought off. Right now in this very moment, he thinks, I’m going to cast aside all these doubts.  Today is the beginning of a new era!  Time to celebrate!

As he sips his beer, he lets his mind wander over his whole life. 

Leonardo was born in Rio de Janeiro, but he is not a real Brazilian. He’s a nomad. He doesn’t truly belong anywhere, he doesn’t really live anywhere and he doesn’t really exist anywhere. He is a ghost. He is a traveller. He humps from country to country, meeting several different people from different cultures, but he never really belongs. He never will. He has spent most of his life studying to one day become a useful member of society, to become some sort of expert at something. What they call these days a qualified worker. The problem is that he has never really figured out exactly what he wants to become.

At the young impressionable age of 6, Leonardo moved to Lisbon where he would spend the next 12 years of his life alternating between the earnest, well-behaved student and the bantering hooligan giving his poor teacher hell.  High school wasn’t too bad; he carried some great memories of rabble rousing with his buds in the park after school, or the time when he found Marta’s folder outside class and brought it back to her.  He thought of his bumbling, awkward reply to her gratitude: “Oh anytime I can help you, I’d be so happy to do it, you know, because, that’s what I like to do, is to help you – er - people.” He wasn’t exactly the smoothest with the ladies, specially not back then.

When he finished high school, he knew it was time to leave Lisbon, despite the close friendships he had established that had endured those uncertain years of adolescence.  Spain seemed like a good choice. He eagerly enrolled at the Faculty of Law in Salamanca, ready to start his academic career and change the world.  But after three years he just didn’t feel like it was right. There was something missing. He had to leave again. So he went to Italy, to Rome, where he studied Italian for almost a whole year.

But the inevitable happened yet again: he felt it was time to get away. Once more he chose to run away. After a period of considerable uncertainty he landed in England, where he would start a new degree. Philosophy this time, in the University of Leeds. For the first time in a while, he felt like he had found some degree of stability. He did well and with all probability he had just finished his degree.

Jolted back into the now, with a degree in Philosophy, several years of legal studies and the experience of having lived in five countries, he knows he is ready more than ever to hit the road once more. He speaks four languages, is a graduate of a respectable University and has absolutely no idea of what he is going to do with his life. Awesome.

           

Half-a-pint later a tall black guy parks himself across from Leonardo and places a pint of his own on the table.

The two look at each other as grins spread widely across their faces. The guy lifts his pint as Leonardo mirrors him.

‘Cheers!’

‘Cheers man. To a new beginning!’ declares Leonardo.

‘To a new beginning.’ They clash their beers and drink.   

  

Soundtrack:
Imagine (John Lennon, 1971)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLgYAHHkPFs