Nina, France.

A way for me to escape reality was anime. Throughout my childhood, I had this imaginary world where I counted the characters from Pokémon, Digimon and Dragon Ball Z as my friends. Up until this day I can still draw Sailormoon from memory and I can sing along with pretty much every song from Mermaid Melody.

My room was wallpapered with posters, and on my desk you could find piles of paper with outwritten deep-dived characteristics of my Gundam Wing-heroes and notebooks in which I wrote endless fan faction. It is still weird to me how my classmates thought this was weirder then me – as they first thought – having stalker-level crushes on 5 different guys who’s names were Hero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre and Chang. Ok, Chang could have actually be a possible name for an actual person… But girl, really?

Anyhow, where it is still a bit cute in your young years, I can tell you that this stuff gets you outcasted for the rest of your time in high-school.

But in the end, as pathetic as it may sound, I felt like I had friends. And since I am already confessing a lot here right now, I guess I can also say that the imaginary safe space, were I could control, re-live and reshape everything as much as I wanted, has often felt like life in its greatest form for me.

Heroes

We all need a hero in our lives. People from the growth-movement will tell you that you should be the hero of your own story, but let’s be honest – life can be tiring and we all need help from time to time. For Nina, this person is her father. She admires his adventurous spirit. A combination of curiosity and impulsiveness lead to wild stories, such as him stealing a fish out of the mouth of a heron. Nina can’t stop laughing when she talks about him. ‘He is crazy, I love him.’

The story about him being a hero gets a different dimension when you learn how he rescued his daughter from an unhealthy living situation with her mother in Marseille, where she had moved to at the age of 7 after the divorce of her parents. ‘By the time I was 12, there came a moment where I noticed that me living with her had turned me into a person I wasn’t. I did not want to be this person. So I called my dad and together with a social worker, they drove all the way from The Netherlands to come pick me up.’

In Amsterdam, she had space to breathe again. But the journey of re-becoming her true self was a challenging one, both for her and her father. When he wanted to spontaneously hug her, she covered her face with her arms in a reflex of protection. When classmates wanted to give her a high five, she raised up her fist.

Nina takes a deep breath when she thinks back about these times. The most pain is cost by remembering the look in her father’s eyes whenever this happened. But it comforted her to go through this healing journey with the person who knew who she was before life changed her, and was ready to hold her hand while finding her way back. With a lot of patience and shared empathy towards each other, the bond they share together today is close. ‘He is always there for me. Whatever happens, I know that he will be there. He is my biggest support system.’

Friendship

While breaking down the bricks that were no longer serving her, she needed to be like Chihero in Spirited Away, and learn how to trust others in a world she didn’t know. For kids who have been in an internal battle with trusting and disconnecting from their caregivers and surroundings for multiple times in their young years, there is an extra layer of confusion and resistance to push through in order to make safe connections with others. Nina explains: ‘Sometimes, somebody calls me their friends even though we have just met up a few times. But for me, I really need time in order to let people in.’

That is why especially one friend is so precious for her: Rebecca. She became the first friend that was promised to stay with her until today. They bonded over their love for Studio Ghibli (whoever doesn’t know Ghibli, shame on you). While I am writing this, they are enjoying their hearts out during a dream trip through Japan.

Identity

Rebecca is one of the rocks that we see in The Boy and the Heron, who entered Nina’s life on the right time. Because while she was already using a lot of energy to calm down her nervous system, she was at an age where we all struggle with one of the biggest life questions. And although a lot of introspection is needed to find an answer, some of the biggest input we receive comes from the people around us, serving us as mirrors:

Who am I?

Who are you when you were born in The Dominican Republic, raised by a Dutch father and French-Tunisian mother, both with Jewish backgrounds, growing up in Dutch neighbourhoods, while going to French and International schools?

Nina laughs: ‘When you ask me, I’m French. I feel French, I feel most confident in the French language, and I’ve spend my most important years of my life there.’ It is funny to notice how every time she talks about France, her French tongue slides into the conversation, as a bit of little extra proof for the fact that no matter what her passport or anybody else may say, she is – in capital letters – French.

She feels proud of how the French culture taught her to activate for what she believes in, and after she states that the Dutch should work on their national cuisine, I can’t stop laughing when she describes my Dutch dinners (fries, croquettes and appelmoes) as “food trauma”. On the other hand, she admits that the French need to learn to be more openminded, especially towards the LHBTI-community. ‘If I would ever open up as bi-sexual in France, I would be bullied and outcasted. I feel very lucky and happy that I can be myself here.’

Empathy

It is a cliché to bring up the nature-nurture-debate into this story, but yet, it has been an important part of her search for identity. Nina notices that she has the same stubbornness of her father, just as his curiosity for the different things life can offer. ‘Of course I have always wondered what I inherited from my birth-parents, and which things became part of me because of the people who raised me. But in the end, it is something I will never get a full answer to.’ Trying to find her birthmother feels like a risk. ‘It is a 1 in 3 chance that it will be like a fairytale. In all other cases, either me or her will feel hurt. It is not worth it.’

People may confuse her way of decision-making with letting fear take the control over the wheel, but I like to believe that it comes from empathy, showing love and care for herself, and the woman who may have missed 26 birthdays, but, in the end, is the one who gifted her life.

Becoming

By the end of the day, we have all fought our battles. We have all faced our demons and all carry our scares. And in the end, we are all still here. Coming to a place of acceptance leaves Nina with one final thing to do: moving forward. ‘Instead of breaking braincells, I try to focus on understanding and embracing who I just simply am today.’

So who is she? She doesn’t have a clear answer to that.

So I will try to answer it for her.

As Mahito, she takes on the challenge to re-build her own tower, learning which bricks are a danger to the foundation and choosing her new bricks carefully, making sure they represent peace, friendship and beauty. Just like Chihero, she chooses kindness over fear, and as San in Princess Mononoke, she is ready to fight for what she stands for, also when this means that it will make her an outcast. In fact, being shaped by life into somebody who may be considered as different, is a superpower that she actively uses to help others, just as we see in Kiki’s Delivery Service.

As No-Face, she proofs that it is the surrounding that changes the people, meaning that everybody can be considered a flower, needing their own right mix of nurturing to bloom into the most beautiful version they can become. She may need a bit more time, but just as Zeniba, she forgives the ones who have hurt her, because she knows that people are only the outcome of things they have been through.

It is no wonder that she feels connected to the strong female characters in Ghibli’s movies, because she sees herself reflected in them. I am sure that, whenever Miyazaki decides to make an other story, she will be his muse. Until then, she takes on the role of the main character in her own story. And I feel excited to watch the next scene.

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