The Quarantine Chronicles

Hello, Dear One,

So glad you are here.

Today's creativity prompt is about tending to feelings of homesickness when we are all...already at home.

This idea came from one of my new favorite books, Lost Connections, by Johann Hari from his chapter on Disconnection from Other People. I've included this excerpt from his writing:

"I once heard the comedian Sarah Silverman talk on a radio interview about when her depression first descended on her. She was in her early teens. When her mother and stepfather asked her what was wrong, she couldn't find the vocabulary to explain it. But then, finally, she said she felt homesick, like when she was at summer camp. She said this to the interviewer, Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air, with puzzlement. She had felt homesick. But she was at home.

I think I understand what was happening to her. When we talk about home today, we mean just our four walls and (if we're lucky) our nuclear family. But that's never been what home has meant to any humans before us. To them, it meant a community -- a dense web of people all around us, a tribe. But that is largely gone. Our sense of home has shriveled so far and so fast it no longer meets our need for a sense of belonging. So we are homesick even when we are at home. "  -- Lost Connections by Johann Hari

Today I would like you to take some time to write or meditate on what HOME means to you. What does it feel like? What does it sound like? Smell like? Look like? How do you know?

Think back to moments in your life when you have experienced a strong sense of feeling like you are home. For me, this means feeling seen, heard, understood (as much as is humanly possible) and sincerely loved. It means feeling like I belong.

As this quarantine progresses, I have wondered quite frequently where I belong. I've heard from other artist friends their fears about this new reality we find ourselves in and how in the world will we as artists be able to make a living now? The question that is behind their fears is...is there a place for me in this world?

This is a question that creatives, and probably all humans, deal with generally...a good portion of our lives, I think. But now? With this pandemic...this question is even more at the forefront in our minds.

Part of being an independent musician or an entrepreneur, in this day and age, is growing your tribe, growing your audience. In essence, growing your family.

Recognizing what that even feels like in the first place though...to have and belong to a family, to feel 'at home' in ourselves, in our experience of this life...is where we need to start before we can begin to build on that.

In the midst all that is going on at the moment however, this is even more challenging.

Write about what 'home' means to you. Put it into poetry. Write a song about how 'home' feels. Meditate on specific moments in your life when you know you've experienced it and if you are having trouble thinking of moments in your experience, think about movie scenes that have made you feel that sense of longing and belonging.

And one further step in today's creative process...take an active step of initiating connection with someone else today. For those of us who were lucky enough to be born into families that knew how to foster a sense of belonging and 'home', it may be easy to take it for granted. Maybe it was something you were given so easily that it is hard to realize...family is something that must be created. Belonging, community, friendship, lifegiving connection must be created and nurtured.

I believe creating family, and 'home' wherever we are, is truly one of the most beautiful things we can create in our whole lives. Take a step and reach out to someone...let them know that they are loved, that they belong. Think about the kind of 'home' you want to create in your lifetime...and start anew today.