Belong Somewhere

"If you could move anywhere, where would you want to move to?"

In our family, asking hypothetical questions is a favorite pastime.

"Well, I liked Pennsylvania, and New York," I said half-heartedly.

It wasn't a lie, it was just a truth that didn't mean anything.  Since childhood, the idea of moving has been a nightmare, or, at best, a bad idea.  Now I think I've finally figured it out.  I belong in the Pacific Northwest - "belong" in exactly the possessive sense of the word.

I am a first-gen PNW girl.  And that can mean a lot of things, which is why I feel isolated, when I'm not.  The PNW is a diverse patchwork-place.  It may be known for rain, coffee, and liberal politics, but once you live here, you see a huge array of subcultures, substereotypes, and interesting trends nobody talks about, since they're understood.

Loneliness thrives here.  Loneliness on both societal and individual levels.  If we have one thing in common - be it an affection for a deadly volcano over our heads, or a mystical fascination with the paradise that is California - we cling to this commonality.  The feeling of belonging somewhere else brings people together, too; as they see it, they are rooted here for a season or two of their lives, but if they stay any longer it is quite by accident, or habit.  They move about tentatively, ergo they form ties with everyone and no one.  Loneliness almost unites the lonely, almost.

Oddly enough, I don't get that feeling of belonging elsewhere.  For that and other reasons, I certainly don't fit in here; I belong to many "groups," but of each label I am always an atypical version.  The main point, though, is that there is nowhere I could fit in better.  It is enough to belong somewhere, never mind elsewhere.  I intend to stay here indefinitely, pull our moody weather over my head, and be glad that Conrad understands.

‘It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream–sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams….’

He was silent for a while.

 ‘…No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life–sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone….’