I was speaking to Simon the other night and given his background – expat parents, international school, two passports, religion, friends living in geographically disparete places and so forth…- and my own multi-natonal background and movements around the world, we had a conversation on identity and home…and how we feel parts of lots of places:

"I read this via Amy Tan", he said,

"In today’s world, perhaps instead of asking ‘where are you from?’

- ask ‘where are you at?’"

The question felt good – because it allows you to be where you are. Here. Now.

And it allows you to stop and reflect in the present.  

So I am musing about multiple identities and how each part of us and our backgrounds inform us.

At the same time I am thinking about moving. Another conversation echoes, this time with Noam, about how trees and plants don’t like to be moved much. 

It made me think about what is the best state for humans? Dynamic, moving, conversing changing, laughing and also, still and silent, reflecting, listening…taken together it’s quite a dance!  

As you may know, or gather, from my writing, I live and have lived in a few places and am lucky to travel…and as I write my family story, I am thinking about concepts of moving, taking root and uprooting, home and identity at the moment. I have and do call many places home…and have been blessed to feel at home in many others’ too…so it seems to be a interesting ‘challenge’ / surprise for me as to where I am going to end up calling home.

(If it is one place, I’m not sure it has to be, at the same time of knowing how important a home base is and feels! And how much I miss friends and family – though they too are geographically dispersed!)

…And I am thinking all this moving and mixing does make us increasingly fragmented/torn/seperated, as Simon spoke of. Parts of us in one place, dreaming of somewhere other, speaking in various tongues and symbols – as in the Chagall image above.

…And perhaps through conversation and all our meetings and re-combining we will learn, as Paul Schumann and I dialogued around, a third way/state of being – that is neither/nor OR both/and – a new way?! Another way.

In the meantime, I hope this finds you well wherever you are at! Moving, or still. And in the very least enjoying the conversation!

image from solo exhibition (c) Francois Bossiere

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 9:05 pm and is filed under art, beauty, conversation, dialogue, musings, questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.