The Feeling of Home
On returning from a short and sweet trip.
This is my last night here in Kenya and I can't sleep. It's the tea.
I am leaving this home again for another one in a foreign land. Home has been the feeling of being a part of something - the hopes and dreams of people, the conversations I have, the new connections and reconnections, the endings and new beginnings. Home has been the way it feels to hug a friend, talk late into the night after closing hours, fumble on the phone for a ride home after a night out, do a spontaneous walk in the park, rage about a country, crotchet in a café, breathe in the misty morning, eat, take a nap and head out for the next thing. I have been stocking up these vignettes and sense my heart wrapping itself with them in a tight embrace.
The sweetness of these moments has been so palpable and refreshing that I want them to fuel my return. Yet, I know that these memories cannot do the work for me of making me feel at home again in a another land. I wish I could package up the smell my mother and all the idiosyncrasies of the being here for use at a later time when the sun is too hot or deceivingly cold that I need a pick me up. But I know that once I fly away, these memories will only just be nostalgic ornaments on a shelf. Sometimes I doubt that I am brave or creative enough to continue the work of world-building in a place that can at times feel very aloof to my existence. When life feels constricting or unexiting, I am tempted to then fold and replay the tapes in my head and sink into a ruminating spiral. Everything about this world-building feels like work that I want to come easier than it does. The dread of returning feels less acute when I remind myself that I have things to look forward to - my friends, a few shows to see, a shared apartment, the morning rituals and a city that has always more to offer.
I want to this body of mine to be present for the opportunities to keep (re)creating the feeling of home. To trust myself will be necessary in being bold with the life I have wherever I choose to be and I hope to do just that.