Is it something innate? Something in all of us? This longing for home, this wanting to belong? Or is it just in those of us who never felt as though they had a home, never felt as Cowsthough they belonged?
The times I've felt a sense of belonging are few and far, scattered through this life, these many lives it feels like. A friend and I made a home in a small flat in a big city. I loved her and I trusted her. Still do, though years and distance have passed between us. I asked her, as we sat together in our kitchen, our playground for cockroaches, if she ever felt as though she belonged. Her reply surprised me.
"All the time," she said."
"How?"
"Because home is in here." She tapped her heart.
I loved her all the more, and admired her, but I didn't feel the same. Instead I had a vague wavery sensation inside my chest, as if I could dissolve at any moment. My home was less substantial even than straw.
I played in bands. Bands can be like family. A substitute perhaps. We worked, rehearsed, toured and played together. We shared secrets and disappointments, dreams and realities, and grew a history that was ours alone. Like a family. But bands break up. My sense of belonging shattered each time.
I spent many years in Twelve Step programs. A big sprawling dysfunctional family. I found like-minded souls, soul sisters if you like. I wedged my way into belonging by doing lots of meetings and hours of service. I was admired by some, befriended by others, and the true friendships endured beyond the realm of those rooms. But eventually I discovered that this adopted Twelve Step family was much like the family I'd left behind. I didn't like it any better the second time around.
I see people attracted to movements and modalities, causes and committees, and I see them as craving the connection that a sense of belonging gives. Like family. I understand it. But I'm no longer a joiner.
I still have a vague wavery sensation in my chest but perhaps this is the way I am. Movement and energy, floating and free. Maybe there's nothing wrong with that. Maybe my sense of home is beyond the realms of this body, this reality. A place I cannot yet understand even though it's here with me, always.
My dog comes up for a pat. My husband is on his way home. A tray of mangoes on the dining table fill the room with their scent. Two magpie larks build a nest in the tree outside my window. The native bees return to their hive.
Guess that this must be the place.
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