breadcrumbs
July 12, 2014 § 2 Comments
Enchanted by another’s recognition of self in an environmental place of belonging I have begun considering my own sense of provenance. A question of physical space of origin, an authentic self reflected in the boundaries of land and community, has tickled the corners of my curiosity begging a conviction of connectivity I cannot conjure.
My earliest years were stretched between my parents’ diverging paths, there are few places of permanence that I recall with a sense of self. Instead I find myself scavenging the landmarks of a life scattered, revisiting the past for an intimacy of sight, sound, or scent to guide me.
Some years ago I visited my grandparents’ home, a familiar hallmark of my childhood, anticipating tremors of recognition; internal resonance attuned to time and place. Moving through old rooms I remember looking for markers of belonging, messages of self coded in old fixtures and leftover structures. Instead I found physical boundaries simultaneously familiar and foreign for the contraction of emotions that accompanied the experience.
Last year I weighed an invitation of homecoming for a sentimental school reunion. In my mind I traversed a troubled path to a slumbering past, tempting demons with old ghosts. Unable to follow my thoughts through the hallways of a time lost to the traffic of new travelers, I danced around the corners of remembering unable to reconcile the enormity of memories with the disorienting passage of time.
In as much as I might tenant places of my past, I return to self in faded lines of old script. This is my home; the smell of pencil shavings and the crinkle of paper, wordplay and errant punctuation.
More than bricks and beams language binds me to a path marked by letters scattered like breadcrumbs. Even as the world around me changes, I find my way with words in much the same way one might navigate the sea by stars. My landmarks are guardians of old memories fixed in time and bound in shape by letters that map a lifetime; lifelines to pieces of self in a journey yet incomplete.
Still, this question of belonging lingers in doubt and I cannot help but wonder if there might come a time when I will trespass a moment and stumble into a familiar other that will inform a sense of knowing and create an unexpected homecoming.
scribblechic 
Your sentiment resonates loudly with me this morning. As I read each sentence I found myself almost physically nodding as I recognized similar analogs to my own life and agreed with your own conclusions.
Later this month I plan to revisit Dublin for the first time in almost 40 years. One of the things I will do is to walk through the neighbourhood where I spend so many summers so very long ago. I wonder will the distant feeling stir up or will I just find myself recognizing the landmarks without the emotions. Who knows?
One thing I do know for sure is that we are all still free to revise the narratives of our lives. Not only do we get to keep the writing moving forward but we can also rewrite the past bits somewhat as we learn new ways of interpreting them.
Once, there was a time when I searched the past for meaning. As time went on, though, I found that the disconnect between the past and future had become far too wide. There were no more lessons left. These days I find the operation has almost reversed and I find myself altering the details of the past in light of current happenings. Though I try to preserve truth–at least the factual truth–all too often I am left feeling that the edits are becoming more and more substantive.
Wise people used to say that we need to use the past to help us interpret the future but now, more and more, I am beginning to see that it ‘s likely exactly the reverse.
Thank you for such a lovely gift of validation, your insight and empathy into my fractured sense of belonging is refreshing. I love the idea that past and present are less cause and effect, but rather correlatives of chance.
I look forward to your reflections on Dublin.