Where Do I Belong?

Fosterverse #43

Dear Writers,

In today’s post—my final post for this season—I offer you a contemplative question I’ve been sitting with as of late. These are the types of questions that rest in your subconscious for long periods of time. If you maintain a conscious relationship to such a question, an illuminating response may surface for you.

The question is, where do I belong?

It’s an important question I sit with for the broader political implications that make uncertain material place. And the personal reasons that poke me.

The question fits neatly into yet another Sagittarian escapade that I find myself in—a bout of adventure that comes after a time of healing.

I wonder how you relate to this question too.

Photo by Amer Mughawish on Unsplash

Yesterday, while laying on my bed, I had a bit of a rational scare when I thought I felt a tick bite me…and then crawl up my leg…and then up around my crotch.

I yanked my pants down, and brushed each of my thighs vigorously. Circular whelps, the size of quarters had already taken shape on my calf.

The truth about me is that I’m a stranger to parts of the natural world. Always will be. In some places, I can’t tell a spider bite from a tick burrow. Yet I belong to this planet, and its nature. And this feeling of being a stranger in places on Earth, haunts me because I’ve struggled with my orientation to a definitive home—a pinnacle of belonging.

I haven’t really looked at the lack of a felt sense of belonging as a wound. Never thought to touch it. Or figure out its origins.

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Between the lineage of my mother and father lies 8,285 miles (13,333.42 Km) of separation. And when I factor in the third land, where my parents would ultimately meet, there exists a triangulation of my being.

In ancient times, the sense of one’s belonging was richly tied to land. So, in a very real sense, parts of my existence claim each of these distant places. Perhaps parts of my existence are gravitationally pulled and I exist in that tension, where I’ve been unconsciously hunting for a home in the compromise.

Maputo, Mozambique and London, UK to DFW, USA

Over the years I’ve been a writer, dancing between continents, and finding adventure in every possible nook of this planet I’ve been permitted to go— earning a reputation for my winding and whizzing about the Earth. And I am scaring the bejeezus out of my family—and maybe myself?

But I wonder if each place I encounter sees me as the vagabond that I’ve been or that I am? That it knows stars have pressed upon me continuous movement, and change, and surprise—and that I belong nowhere and everywhere all at once.

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Surprisingly, in contemplating this question, I’ve navigated towards a felt sense of an answer in a metaphorical home.

It’s nestled deeply in a truth. Writers dwell between worlds.

The imaginary audience we prepare for, the inner editor that helps to hone, the ethereal creative, and the steadfast time-keeper that drives our creations to completion, all exist outside of material existence.

And so it dawned on me…

I belong to these immaterial souls who dwell within the act of writing. They commune with me. Place me into their bosom. Nurture my creativity in the otherworldly. And at times I feel the warmth of their possession, a sense of belonging when I am claimed as one of their own.

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Danver Chandler is a Foster Contributor. She writes Icing on the Cake.

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