Where I Belong - Motherland
“Feeling like a refugee. Like it don't belong to me. The colors flash across the sky. This air feels strange to me. Feeling like a tragedy. Take a deep breath and close my eyes. Until I die, I'll sing these songs. On the shores of Babylon. Still looking for a home. In a world where I belong” – Where I Belong, Switchfoot
Have you ever noticed that the places, things and people that set your soul on fire; the things you feel a deep sense of longing for, are where, to what, and with whom you feel the deepest sense of belonging? That where you belong is identified through what you are most passionate about; what you long for the most? I’ve never known this to be truer, for me, than throughout these past few years. Since I learned about my Scottish heritage. Since I learned of my Scottish background, people and family. And, since I visited Scotland, myself. I always had an unexplainable obsession with Scotland. Even before I travelled there, and learned of my family history, my heart belonged in there. I belonged there. I know that because of the depth of longing I’ve always felt for a place I’ve never lived. A home, that I wasn’t born of but that gave me an overwhelming sense of ‘coming home’, the very minute I set foot in on her ground. Learning of my history, only drove that further home for me. Explained my strange obsession with a place I’d never been. Who’s earth I’d never set foot on, until a few years ago.
I've spent my life not feeling like I truly belonged anywhere I've been. Longing to know where I belonged.
I’ve also, spent my entire life, listening to Scottish music; songs of druids and fairies, magic and mysticism. Haunting stories of old, told through music. Read aloud, on pipes and whistles, and ancient strings. Ethereal voices, narrating these stories through song. Music that would not only evoke feelings of fantasy and wonder but also, an inexplicable sense of comfort and home, at the same time. That always had a centering and balancing effect on me. Music that, the very first chord of which, made me take a deep breath and pause; almost in some kind of retrospective longing. Stories that made me reflect on experiences I’d never had, and long to ‘return’ to places I’d not yet been.
I’ve spent my life reading books, and watching movies and TV shows with a Scottish narrative, scenes from Scotland, or featuring or written by a Scot. I’d watch videos of drone fly-overs of Scotland, and get lost in the landscape. I’d do virtual bike rides through Scottish towns. Or do virtual walks through the Scottish Highlands, as a form of meditation. I’d watch and re-watch shows like Outlander, or Shetland, sometimes not even paying attention to the plot. Only watching so as to feel like I was there, myself. All, would invoke the deepest sense of longing I’ve ever felt about anything; a sense of longing to ‘go home’. ‘Home’, to a place I’d never lived, and a place I, myself didn’t directly hail from. Even though I was already, ‘home’ in the most logical sense of the word.
I lived in the town where I’d spent the bulk of my adult life. The town in which I raised my children, and where I’d formed most of my life’s memories. A town where two out of three of my children now lived, as well. Close by to my third. And yet, a place in which I didn’t feel as though I entirely belonged. I owned my own home; my dream home that I’d longed for all those years; because it reminded me of a stone cottage you’d find by the Scottish seaside. The very stone cottage in which I longed to live one day. And, here I was living in it, but not in the right place. Not in the place that my heart longed to be.
Longing that so closely resembles the kind of longing that one holds for their long-lost love; their true love, their soulmate. The desire to be whole and true to oneself. Whole, even when you, yourself are already a whole person but when there is still a ‘hole’ inside of you; a longing. A longing to belong. If I believed in reincarnation I would say I've lived there before, in a past life. And, that it was my true home. I've never felt completely at home anywhere else. I've never felt that I completely belonged with anyone or anywhere else. I’ve always held a deep longing for something else. A place, person or thing that elicits an unquenchable thirst within you. And, an inextinguishable fire in your soul. And, that is what I felt, the very moment I looked down at her landscape, from the window of the plane that was bringing me ‘home’ to her.
Although it’s very unlikely that it will ever come to pass, I would love to live there one day. If even for a short time. Or, at the very least, to visit yearly to feel that same sense of belonging that I’ve felt both times I roamed her Highlands and Lowlands. To sail on her Lochs and wander through her Glens, hike through her forests and explore her hidden wonders, like Burn O’Vat, or the Fairy pools of Skye. To stroll her beaches and explore her ancient ruins. Like a person, re-visiting their childhood home.
There is a reason that the word, “belonging”, has the word, “longing”, in it. The ‘longing’ inside of ‘belonging’ is that of, where, to what, and for whom you long; and that shows you where you belong.
I belong in Scotland. I wasn’t born or raised there, myself but she is my Motherland; the place of my ancestors. She gave birth to the people who would later, create and form me. I am formed from her very earth and clay. Her history lives inside my DNA. At the very core of my being, I feel her there. Her stories, haunt my soul. Her landscape brings me peace. When I stand on her soil, I feel a sense of belonging that I’ve never had anywhere else. Never, have I felt so at home. Nowhere else, with no one else, and doing nothing else, have I ever felt the deep sense of ‘belonging’, as I felt while I was in Scotland. I’ll return to her again one day. Hopefully sooner than later, as I am heartsick at missing that feeling of belonging I feel in her presence. The feeling of belonging. I will one day, once again replace that deep sense of longing, for the feeling of belonging. Because whether or not it makes any sense at all, that is where I belong. And, although she is not my ‘homeland’, she will always be my ‘home’. Where I belong.
Alba gu bràth
Màthair-dùthcha