Belonging

A nomad -- I've never had a home! I always tell people -- 20 towns and cities, 2 continents, 44 postal addresses, and I have never returned to live in a house!

I have never had that experience of watching people around me (other than my family) grow and change over the years or watch a house or a tree go from stage to stage and become more beloved as it does.

There was a time perhaps I longed to "belong." But I also realized, watching others, that "belonging" comes with a price. When you "belong to a community" the community needs to stamp you and claim you in some ways. And for me the most wonderful thing about not "belonging" has been that I am free to be who I am. I am free to become whatever I want to be. And I owe no explainations or apologies to anyone for that. I am free to partake in whatever in life or the world or cultures and communites appeals to me. And by the same token, I am also free to object, to resist, to discard, whatever does not deeply resonate as true or authentic with my inner core.

Still, I think sometimes deep inside I still long for a place of 'peace' and 'rest' -- something other than the quiet time I spend with me. An actual place -- a town -- a home. But also a place where I can be free to me just as I am. Where I can be accepted just as I am. That to me is "belonging."