The Ache of Solitude
Holy the groanings
“It ever was, and is, and shall be,
ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled
and in measures going out.”
– Heraclitus
All my life I’ve been an outsider. I’ve never quite fit in the places I’ve found myself. A bramble in the wheel, a scratch on the record, an alien squinting at an indecipherable script, a square punk in a round world: I peer in from a slight but sharp remove.
Moving out of state five times throughout my life, and living in four culturally distinct regions of the US, has led me to long questioning of the meaning of home: what and where it is, or who it is. Introversion and transience have formed an unshakeable sense that I am native to nowhere.
In 2016 my family gathered for Thanksgiving and dispersed more widely than ever before, each of us returning to some kind of separation. I watched my wife and children drive away, already anticipating Christmas and the end of our time apart. I watched my parents dwindle in the rearview mirror. I turned to face southward, freshly alone.
If home is the seat of heart and heart is part of soul, then our uprootings are also parts of our identities, becoming engrafted over time.
