I never quite liked the word.
Tourist.
Always gave me the impression of transience.
Temporary, like the relationships I often fail to keep.
I’ve always preferred
Explorer.
Cultural anthropologist or
global citizen with a vision in time.
See I’m from Chicago.
A city of wind and wonder where we wait for tomorrow’s as Great Lakes grate shores and skyscrapers overlook feet etched in concrete.
But my story was different.
Transplanted?
Or perhaps, just planted.
Cause truth is, im not quite sure where home is these days.
Like I keep searching for someone or somewhere that accepts my broken bones as their own.
Though, I’m not the type to leave premature.
Nor force false perceptions, no.
I’m the type to stay, and absorb new air till it
Settles in base of my lungs.
A damp, green weighty reoccurrence.
Until bread from the local bakery tastes like habit.
For me, home is where the art is.
Where wandering informs wondering.
Like the accumulated status of an international vagabond.
Connecting Walton woods off center ave where I had my first kiss.
To rocky cliffs overlooking LA where cumulus clouds connect below the horizon.
London to Lagos, or
Wycombe to Wales.
The crimson cord of identity cuts like sword through borders torn by creed and color;
Finding home in the soft centre of our shared humanity.
It’s quite the paradox.
To belong.
(Especially when you don’t.)
Finding spaces in places that face the music
of one’s indomitable soul.
While resting in the rhetoric of
Remembrance.
For every time I say “home”
the word stretches
and thins—
like light diffused through stained glass
As if I’m always almost there.
Always. Almost.
Maybe home is where wandering stops, and time begins.
Not where you return, but where you become.
A perpetual practice in presence.
Allowing soil to
Cling
To the map of your soul.
A place where memory meets destiny.
And Love leads The Way.
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