Cornelis Visscher (II): Abraham verlaat Haran
(Abraham leaves Haran], after Jacopo Bassano (1638 - 1702)

"I could not hope to thrive without holding some deep sense of Belonging …"

Being Exiled disrupted my sense of Belonging. I fled from a place I had been steeped in all my life to a place where I didn't know myself from Adam. So much of anyone's identity seems intrinsically tied to their place, their spot, that prolonged distance from there wears one down. The open-ended prospect of never returning should be more than merely disturbing; it should and did spark a genuine existential crisis for me because I'd lost the defining element of my identity. I could and did navigate our new world as if I were present, but I wasn't. I might have been somebody else, and I could not have told anyone who that somebody else might have been. I arrived and lived initially as a placeholder of myself, hollowed out and thin.

A concerted search for myself ensued and took several forms. I began by longing so sincerely for my lost homeland that the longing became my being for a while. I became the very embodiment of longing. This was an ache so deep it had no bottom and so vast that I could not even imagine its edges. I became a ghost haunting our new world. It's a wonder, looking back, that I was able to search for and find a place to live as such a disembodied presence more absent than accountable for. The only reasonable replacement for such longing might be the other sort of Belonging, characterized by memberships as an acknowledged participant. Switching my driver's license began this process, for I had to destroy my former identity before the state and take a foreign document as representing my newer self. I held onto my invalidated Washington State identity as if retaining my fingernails lest some witch use them to cast evil spells against me. I desperately needed to retain evidence of whoever I once was.

Takoma Park helped, for it was an easy place to feel as if I belonged. It called itself The People's Republic because of its long history of activism. It was the town that had successfully opposed a freeway extension that would have passed directly through its center, destroying its character. This created a safe space within the swirling metropolis where I could easily imagine sanctuary from the everyday cruelties of city living. It meant something when I explained that we lived in Takoma Park. People would cock their heads and listen, for that name held a caché in that region. It was as if the listener was waiting to learn what kind of kook they were having the pleasure of interacting with. I reveled in this offhanded identity as I had long identified as a heretic in society. I appreciated this sort of notoriety. It suited me.

I registered to vote. I attended city council meetings since our house was just a couple of blocks from city hall. The Muse and I registered with the usual water, gas, and electrical companies. While not designating our names, we both held Metro passes that identified us as frequent users and, therefore, not as tourists. I came to disdain the tourists who came to consume the cherries on top of the town without experiencing its many and varied externalities. Over time, I came to identify as more a native than an Exile, especially once I acquired my Library of Congress Reader's Card. I passed the readership class conducted by the Librarian of Congress, a researcher of worldwide renown. I spent my time orienting at reader desk 329 in the Jefferson Building's Grand Reading Room. I came to have my own shelf off the main reading room, and I considered that reading desk my headquarters.

I slowly mastered the space into which we'd been Exiled. I felt defensive whenever I discovered someone else sitting in "my" place in the library. I slowly developed a list of personal places where I went for variouses and sundries, as well as places I'd visited once and swore never to return. I owned both of these. These self-designated squares on my new checkerboard came to reidentify who I was and rendered an eventual sense of Belonging. I knew I could never live long enough to develop as deep a relationship with DC as I had with my home country. I knew I was building a surrogate, not really intended as a replacement but as more of a temporary placeholder. Still, the months I spent between identities were depleting and painful. The hollowness ached without the courtesy of providing tangible sensations. Like light too bright to see inflicts torture painlessly, Being Longing chips away at well-being. It might be the very soul of an ill-being instead.

When we returned from being Exiled, I felt forced to surrender my surrogate Belongings just as I had been forced to forfeit my originals when first Exiled. I released them with great hesitation, for their acquisition had cost me more than I could ever accurately account for. I knew their immeasurable value and I felt that wealth slipping into inaccessibility as I surrendered back into my native homeland and identity again. I have little left of that treasure but stories, mere placeholders of a once expansive implicate order, a web of memberships once in excellent standing but now barely recalled. May I never forget the profoundly disquieting sensation of embodying longing or the immense underlying value of all I genuinely Belong to. Being Exiled taught me that I could lose that sense of Belonging, but I could also construct an adequate replacement, and I could not hope to thrive without holding some deep sense of Belonging wherever I stand.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz