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roachboy · 04-04-2009, 09:24 AM

i've been thinking about this lately. i'm kind of a nomad, but tempermentally i'm not so much a nomad. it just seems to be the way things work out.

i've been lucky to have found myself in a series of communities, each in a different place, each different from the other. each community simultaneously expanded my head and rooted me in a way symmetrical with it--this because each was made up of folk who do different things, and because as you move through this life business you continually change. like it or not, you continually change.

i feel strangely connected to tiny town, partly because my family lives around here (and this is the first time i've been around them geographically in many years) and partly because as time goes on i am assembling another one of the seemingly endless series of communities---what's different about here is that i also feel some strange connection to the terrain, to the coastline, to this particular coastline and the ways of thinking and being that are of a piece with it. i never had anything like this last part in chicago or philadelphia. paris maybe yes, but not in the same way, not with this sense of intimacy.

but i don't have any strong sense that this is a permanent situation. mostly because i have just put myself through a fairly profound change in direction and am consolidating myself...pushing into the plan i have for this next phase of being in the world--but i have a sense from somewhere that this new phase is going to cause me to leave tiny town at some point. so i enjoy it while i'm here, learn from it what i can, take it all in.

but in the end, it's hard to say if one is a nomad or if one simply imagines oneself to be such, or even whether there's a difference-and what the implications are of this being or imagining, whether it creates the sense of distance that seems like is just part of the world around you. it's circular. maybe it doesn't matter.

04-04-2009, 09:24 AM	#17 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i've been thinking about this lately. i'm kind of a nomad, but tempermentally i'm not so much a nomad. it just seems to be the way things work out. i've been lucky to have found myself in a series of communities, each in a different place, each different from the other. each community simultaneously expanded my head and rooted me in a way symmetrical with it--this because each was made up of folk who do different things, and because as you move through this life business you continually change. like it or not, you continually change. i feel strangely connected to tiny town, partly because my family lives around here (and this is the first time i've been around them geographically in many years) and partly because as time goes on i am assembling another one of the seemingly endless series of communities---what's different about here is that i also feel some strange connection to the terrain, to the coastline, to this particular coastline and the ways of thinking and being that are of a piece with it. i never had anything like this last part in chicago or philadelphia. paris maybe yes, but not in the same way, not with this sense of intimacy. but i don't have any strong sense that this is a permanent situation. mostly because i have just put myself through a fairly profound change in direction and am consolidating myself...pushing into the plan i have for this next phase of being in the world--but i have a sense from somewhere that this new phase is going to cause me to leave tiny town at some point. so i enjoy it while i'm here, learn from it what i can, take it all in. but in the end, it's hard to say if one is a nomad or if one simply imagines oneself to be such, or even whether there's a difference-and what the implications are of this being or imagining, whether it creates the sense of distance that seems like is just part of the world around you. it's circular. maybe it doesn't matter. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 04-04-2009 at 09:26 AM..