In that first year living in Rome I wondered: when will I feel like I belong here? Maybe when I master the language. When I have more Italian friends. When I have my visa. When the country grants me a permit to stay. When I have a job with a contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t know it would take me so long to reach these things. Many years. I didn\u2019t know that my belonging wouldn\u2019t come with achieving them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone who has moved abroad knows the moment that is the most confusing, most jarring, that makes you feel the most out of place doesn\u2019t happen in the country you\u2019ve moved to. It doesn\u2019t happen in the foreign land. It happens in the country you left. It happens when you return and expect to finally feel \u201cat home\u201d and instead feel even more out of place. The faces of your family and your friends are the same. The street where you grew up is the same. But\u2026 it\u2019s you. You\u2019ve changed changed so much that you don\u2019t fit anymore. The familiar food is foreign, your hometown is strange, even hearing your own language around you all the time is bizarre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the change and the growth you sought when you moved and yet it saddens you. There is a separation in yourself from who you were before and who you are now. There is an alienation in the core of your very own being. There is no going back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, it\u2019s not like I would normally spend much of my time thinking about my identity and where I \u201cbelong.\u201d But I am in the situation of being reminded of it every day. As a tour guide, it always amazes me that I get the exact same questions every day. Yes, usually about history or art but also and inevitably about me. These are questions that are natural and normal to ask and I usually think nothing of them. But there are some days when the questions feel like needles under my skin. \u201cHow often do your friends come visit you?\u201d I presume they mean the friends I left. The answer: almost never. It\u2019s not like I am close to them, mostly on the West Coast. \u201cWhat do your parents think of you living here?\u201d even though I am 31 years old. And the one that I understand why they ask but that is innately flawed: \u201cWhen are you going back home?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, I\u2019m not stupid. I\u2019m on a tour of the Uffizi or the Roman Forum and I am fully aware that if I were to answer \u201cWhat does home really mean anyway?\u201d I would be considered at minimum a bit of a downer and at most downright creepy. It\u2019s not a strange question to ask but it betrays something of the asker\u2026 that they are so linked with place that they can\u2019t seem to fathom another choice. And they can\u2019t fathom that they also had the choice to stay, that I might just as easily ask them, \u201cWhen are you going to leave home?\u201d That perhaps the asking of either of these questions is besides the point. There is less standing between us than they think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve written pages and pages in my notebooks trying to find the response to this question. It sticks in me. In essence this whole blog is about my search for the answer of where home is. But today what came out is a poem so that is what I\u2019ll share. To be frank: I don\u2019t write poems. But I think they are for the days when a straightforward answer won\u2019t do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Lines between Us\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t belong <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is just a place.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Where are you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is outside of time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyday I meet new versions<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Of myself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n They ask me who I am.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n How eager we are <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n To say, \u201cThis is me\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we know the unit of measurement. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is where I belong\u201d before we know where <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you belong<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With me?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do I belong <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n To you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What about <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Them<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Those<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n They?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am not contained by places.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither are you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Categorize \u201cthem\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And you draw a box around yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Find the comfort of a definition <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And you are blinded<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before you can find <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The language to talk about such things.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The lines between us <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Are drawn in the sand <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A children\u2019s game.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you really think time exists?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (Really think you don\u2019t)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Have a choice?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unchain yourself<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n From your belonging.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unchain me<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n From your measurements and<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n From your language<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unbalanced by here and there<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Shrunk in place and time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Where we are<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWrit in Water,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Each drop falls into the sea.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In that first year living in Rome I wondered: when will I feel like I belong here? Maybe when I master the language. When I have more Italian friends. When I have my visa. When the country grants me a permit to stay. When I have a job with a contract. I didn\u2019t know it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}