If it is true that the way I do something is the way I do everything, then my way is togetherish.
When I was in high school, a friend called me a wanderer..
This was neither meant to compliment nor offend, but I did feel very “seen.” Not in the good-but-awkward way we sometimes feel when people pay us compliments, but in the uncomfortable-and-cringy way that highlights the differences people find unattractive.
In labeling me a wanderer, perhaps for the first time, this friend helped me begin to see, and seek, my true [yet-evolving] self.
I am a wanderer togetherish is my preferred way.
I was once married. We and our dog lived in a lovely place with a lovely community. A building transformed from its original Identity as a warehouse or a factory (depending on the era) to condominiums of varying size and style.
I love these spaces; how their design not only connects the past to the present, but serves as an impartial portal between the diversity that exists within.
I wonder if these spaces help us think more consciously about our role in the world and our responsibility to molding the future.
Do they animate our drive toward action? Or are the people who seek to live in such environments already animators?
Likely some odd fusion of the two.
Togetherish is my way.
I am no longer married, nor do I live in this once-warehouse-now-lofts building on the Eastside of Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
In August of 2022 I moved out of Atlanta for “good.” And as I travel, whether I’m in the States or abroad, I find myself focusing on the similarities that unite our beautiful and unapologetic diversity.
Unlike my 17 year-old self, I’ve come to love existing in, and passing through, spaces where I stand out. For the first time in my life, I’ve come to appreciate feeling seen.
Wandering through the spaces shared by groups of different people, living different lives, following different beliefs; operating in different ways.
I don’t consciously change myself to adapt, but I also don’t [outwardly] react to strangeness.
Strangeness is inevitable, and a reaction can be felt as criticism.
I am not numb to difference; I am simply not shocked by it.
I observe the ways of others, finding later that some ways have stuck to me, ever so subtly changing my own way.
My friend still calls me a wanderer when I visit or we talk on the phone. She has always been right, only now I hear her words and I wear them with pride.
I am a wanderer and togetherish is my way.
I don’t wander to abandon nor to be dismissive (a word I hear in my father’s voice-dismissive-a word most certainly intended to strike a nerve). I wander, rather, to understand myself. The world, each person I have the fortune to meet, is my mirror. A reflection of the ways we are similar; highlighting the things that set us apart.
I wander, not to be away from anyone or any place, but to be alongside both; maintaining my emotional and spiritual connection to the ever-changing world around me here and now.
I love the way distance creates beauty and amplifies love; how our memories of far away people and unattainable things help them retain their lovely and shiny nature.
I love the way distance and time pauses our developing understanding of a person or a place.
I love the feeling of returning.
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