On Illusion of Not Belonging
September was marked by a sudden change of season and countries, by ruptures. Portuguese blue skies were painted in gray and red by the fires. Polish skies pregnant with heavy clouds hanging low with a glooming sense of impermanence and upcoming season of stillness.
Again, just as nature goes in cycles, I spent again a few weeks in Poland. Time with family, time in the village I grew up in, yet another time in my land of origin.
“What is belonging for you?” - a friend asked me recently.
What came to me, when the question penetrated layers of my being, was that belonging is not something flickery. I suddenly felt belonging as something very solid.
I realised that to belong is to be in a relationship.
I cannot un-belong to Poland. I was born here and even if I lived most of my adult life abroad, that fact shaped me forever beyond the ways I can comprehend.
I cannot un-belong to Earth. Each of my breaths is a loving vow of belonging to this planet, to her ecosystem. My body belongs to the Earth via a loving embrace of gravity. I belong to this world via atoms that came together just so I can manifest.
I belong to this land I grew up on. Its curves, edges, changes are instinctively intertwined with mine. The rising sun is filtered through leaves screaming of yellow and red and touching my skin as I type those words. I belong here.
I realised the whole quest for belonging is oftentimes not realising the fact that we already belong. We belong because we were born. We can only choose to let it in and let it change us.
I realised the whole quest for belonging is sometimes looking for belonging in wrong places. Belonging as “relationships that last”, “people that fully accept us”, “people among which we feel ourselves”. We make belonging conditional - and as a consequence - we feel like we do not belong. We link belonging with permanence. With stability. With alikeness. With a "feeling".
For me belonging is a fact of a relationship. I belong to the tree in from of my house and that tree belongs to me because we are in an exchange - biological, energetical, physical. We are together.
I miss people and places not because I don’t belong, but because I belong.
What if belonging was not about liking someone, being accepted, being adaptive?
What if it was about boldly being who you are in a loving relationship to the world?
How would that feel?
I weave a thread of belonging by writing this message to you. If you want to weave this thread back please consider becoming a regular supporter of my work.