Quite The Thing, Staying | 11.16.20
I think the hardest thing for humans to do, is to stay. We are wandering creatures, I believe this, and staying is not in our nature. Built to explore, to float like feather across this place, to land on the laps of many, changing each others lives as we go. Some, we find eventually, are worth the stopping for, worth the stillness, worth staying. We stay for family, we stay for friends, we stay for lovers, and those who take pieces of our hearts with them. We stay because they are worth the staying, and I think somewhere along the way we start to realize that We are worth the staying for, as well. We are worth that terrifying prospect of slowing down and instead of skimming more surfaces, diving deep down into the depths, into the places where light struggles to reach.
Spin around to me
and look up into my eyes.
I am here to stay.
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This got to me. Really quickly, in fact. Reading this felt like having a conversation with an old friend, over a cup of something warm, on a cold winter day. I still find it hard to stay. My husband just knows it somehow and magically figures out a way to put some miles under our feet. He call it the "the bugs," this need to go: "You have the bugs again, don't you," he will say. With the right person, going becomes an adventure, while staying is easier to bear. I belong to so many places at once, by choice as much as much as necessity. And I suspect, I always will. As it is for most immigrants, the hardest question for me to answer is the "Where are you from?" one.
So many of us spend our days in other people’s lands and our roots stretch on and on, pulling us back, like an invisible elastic band. The further we travel, the tighter it grasps, but we cannot go back. In reality, these days, I probably could. But I don't . Ultimately, the roots snap and either transplant us to a new land or we keep moving. They are not infinitely elastic and once broken, they launch us into a free fall.
Action and Reaction.
Velocity of Flight.
Away from Home.
Never meant to make this comment so long, but it really does feel like talking to an old friend. Thank you for that. These days, we choose to belong somewhere for a while. After all, I have always preferred the company of those who do “not belong” here. And I prefer belonging to them more than any place in particular.
great food for thought. half of my family line were sort of reckless or carefree artist-farmers who didn't want to be told what to do. the other half were the obedient type, 8-5, farmers, did everything they were supposed to. part of me wants to soar above the earth from adventure to adventure, the other part wants to work the same patch of land 18 hours a day for a lifetime. the two forces seem to balance each other out pretty well. it's the desire sometimes to go that gives value to the decision to stay, it's the knowledge that we could go that gives romance and will to the decision to stay. when we acknowledge how free and crazy we all are, we can also see our loyalty to those we love as sort of its own crazy adventure. it doesn't have to mean it is boring or settling. quite the opposite, if a person who loves adventures and can't stand still for ten seconds wants to stay for a long time, it won't be boring at all, it will be a series of adventures over and over and over again, each day or event needing new life, new air, new eyes to see, and so on. you can have adventures over and over with the same person if you want.