Who Are "My" People?

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Who Are "My" People?

by Angela Boddie on Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 6:25pm

Wanderlust is a beautiful thing, but sometimes being a "misfit" leaves you falling in between the cracks of the continents. A heart that skips a beat from the smell of jet fuel may struggle to find an equilibrium when forced to stay in one place for a long period of time, doing the same thing over and over and over again. The ecstasy of a new place or a re-visit to an old love may give way to reverse "culture shock" and leave the traveler grasping for her (his) place in the world; this blue-and-green-ball that has little pieces of her heart seperated by vast distances. Someone called it the "pitfalls of cosmopolitanism;" Tony Cohen calls it "Displacement as arrival; flight as sanctuary.”

I found this today randomly in the bookstore and it summed up my recent musings:

"Who Are My People?"

"I went into the church where the congregation
Worshiped my God. Were they my people?
I felt no kinship to them as they knelt there.
My people? Where are they?
I went into the land where I was born,
Where men spoke my language...
I was a stranger there.
"My people," my soul cried. "Who are my people?"

Last night in the rain I met an old man
Who spoke a language I do not speak,
Which marked him as one who does not know my God.
With apologetic smile he offered me
The shelter of his patched umbrella.
I met his eyes... and then I knew..."
~ Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni

I LOVE this ... I saw the man on the right twice, always singing and roller-blading... here he waves at the kilted bagpipe player as he rolls across the intersection (TORONTO 4/09)