It was 2015 and I was feelin’...at home. The rhythms and waves of Guam suited me, they had become a part of me. From beachy hair and kisses on the cheek, to celebrating at fiestas and sheltering during storms with precious friends, it was like no other place I'd ever lived. And yet, as with other places I've lived, this feeling of comfort and confidence came right before we were to transition again.
A few months later we moved to South Carolina, and I watched my husband struggle with culture shock as I tried to encourage him but eventually just sat back and thought, “Yup." He'd lived on the island twelve years; this transition was somewhat akin to hurdling in track and field. Jumping over one barrier after another, wondering if you will ever find your stride--some moves are straight up hard.
What about you? Have you ever felt out of place where you live?
Sometimes a place doesn’t even have to be new to feel uncertain to us—foreign, with the power to disembody, to make you question who you are outside of the places where you once felt more yourself, and therefore more at home.
One day I’ll show you pictures of wide-eyed 2011 me, teaching students from cultures I didn’t know, picking up random illnesses, struggling with disordered eating, and wondering what the heck I’d gotten myself into. And yet, I knew that this amazingly diverse, welcoming, and *hot* island was where I was meant to be.
I learned it was a precious place whether or not I had ever met its shores. It was a place of awakening, growing into adulthood, and eventually meeting the one whom my soul loves.
But there was flailing— there was proverbial arm flapping of the most unflattering kind and lots of complaining and messing up but trying to do better next time. There was a lot of me trying to stay afloat, learning to swim, learning to love it, that beautiful, tiny island.
And you know what? I did.
Wendell Berry wrote, “Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.”
The more I respected Guam—its heritage, its people, and even its frustration toward haoles like me, the more I made friends who felt like family, and that blast of humidity meeting me at the airport exit doors? It felt like home.
I taught my students and they taught me. I picked out paint (some for our studio, some to cover graffiti at the bus stops in our village), did laundry outside, talked through misunderstandings, looked for every bit of beauty around me. The more I worked and learned and listened, the deeper my roots could take hold and the stronger I could stand.
Some places will feel like home more than others or more quickly than others, but no one can appreciate a place for you--no one else can do the hard work of meeting people and dealing with all the logistics of uprooting your life. But you can.
I can't promise you'll feel at home if you do x, y, or z, but I can promise your experience will be much richer if you put in the effort to both give and receive. It will be tiring and messy at times, but it will be worth it.
Love,
Audrey Ann
Your words 'n writings always make me think. Saving this one for that 'move' that may come much sooner than I'd hoped. Thank you for encouraging me that I can do it when the time comes. You are a blessing!