unpack your bags and plant your trees

i think it started early this week

when i made some smart-ass, sarcastic, flippant comment

about mosquitoes 
lack of mountains 
and feeling homeless

about leaving Manitoba in april 

and never looking back.

and a friend's insightful comments

peered into my rootlessness 
and saw me

the backlash another smart-ass, sarcastic, totally uncalled-for dig

a witty "thanks, counselor..."

slamming the door shut

and a moment caught off-guard, stumbling awkwardly

in small-talk around a potluck

at a simple "so where are you from?" inquiry

forced to explain 

my standard "where-are-you-from" answer

rejected by one to whom i had given

one of my other standard stock answers

this week, my Father's mischievous smile 

prompting, prodding me past the shame of my immaturity

daring my adventurer's heart to risk being at home

in the awkward steps of an uncomfortable dance

to be known again, to again know deeply

"Community calls me.  Stronger than therapy, more than medicine - what do I really need?  All human beings, all deities hurt you in the end; I know this.  It's a matter of degree, a matter of choice.  Can I accept the hurt, trade it for the pretend fullness?  Can I fling myself into the void, knowing the bottom is strewn with shards of glass, knowing the bottom might just kill me if I land on it wrong, in an effort to find something meaningful simply in the falling?  I want so much more with my life.  I want to make a difference.  I want to be the kind of person I expect others to be.  I want community..."

 (from Renee Altson's "Stumbling Toward Faith")

They say that home is where the heart is.

I guess I haven't found my home.

And we keep driving round in circles,

Afraid to call this place our home.

And are we there yet?

(from Igrid Michaelson's "Are we there yet?")


"Wherever you go in life, unpack your bags - physically and mentally - and plant your trees.  Too many people never live in the now because they assume the time is too short to settle in.  They don't plant trees because they expect to be gone before the trees bear fruit.  But if you keep thinking about the next move, you'll never live fully where are are.  When it's time to go, then it's time to go, but you won't have missed what this experience was about.  If you never eat from the trees, someone else will." 

(from a father's letter to his daughter in Third Culture Kids)