Belonging_Creative_Story

Belonging creative story 28N3J409DS Having a place to belong in terms of a having a home is very important as I believe that it gives a sense of belonging. Maybe this is because the environment in a home or the feeling you get when you walk into someone’s home is determined by the people that live there. It’s as if a house absorbs the personalities of people living in it and becomes a home. And when we live in a “Home” we feel that are lives are truly worth living as we feel we belong with those people and with the place we live in. Having lost my home in a bush fire I yearn this sense of belonging, having seen my home destroyed its like as if I’ve lost this sense, this sense that you can keep coming back to this place no matter what happens and you will always belong. I felt bereft or lost of a sense of direction as though I don’t know where my place of belonging, my place of security and comfort is' Where will my new journey lead me, I hope it’s a new home but it might not lead me there as my home has been destroyed. Will I ever be able to make a home again' Will I ever be able to feel that feeling of being wedded to a place' Having lived generations of simple life growing old between the land and sky I watched crops grow in summer, harvested in autumn, walked through sweet smelling flowers in spring in the garden and in winter sitting on the porch drinking coffee and reading to Elizabeth who ironically would politely nod and sew. I had spend most of my life watching my children grow and leave home yet they would leave behind something of them in my sanctuary, my beautiful cottage like two story wood frame house. Elizabeth would “mother why don’t you move to city or maybe we should build you a new” but I insisted to leave it as its as it reminds me of the generations of our family that too like us inhabited this house, that it is simply us. It represents us, it is a part of you and this house has a part of you. Neither is complete without the other. It is our native place and this may surprise you now but trust at a ripe age of ninety three you too will return to this place. At this stage it never occurred to me, not even remotely that my children will no longer and that my children will no longer have this place that they can always return to. Yet ultimately I have decide that this destroyed site of my home is the very place my journey for a new place of belonging starts. If one is to live mindfully then choosing a place to die is as vital as where and how I live. So I started making a list of all the things that my new home must have. At the top I write “I want to be with my children and see my grandchildren grow” followed by “where I can walk and establish my fellowship and have friends”. So where I thought my journey would begin is the very place it ends, having decided to return to this simple country landscape of my childhood I am comforted by the knowledge that I can do everything in my list here. Not only have new home but have my previous sense of belonging in my memory. I guess I can still know myself as part of the families before me through the act and art of remembering. This is the very end I had hoped for and the thought of this solaces me. I imagine my self dying here and my body being buried here, being absorbed into this place and moving on to eternity like those who had lived here before me.