Where Am I From?

In one sense this is a simple question. I am from the lower mainland of BC - The Greater Vancouver Regional District. I was born in Surrey and have lived in the general vicinity of Vancouver my whole life except for a brief 3 month semester in Paisley, Scotland.

However, in another sense I find it difficult to answer the question. I am from my parents. Where are my parents from? This is another difficult question. My Dad was born in Vancouver but didn't grow up here. My Mom's family was from Victoria but she grew up out east. My dad's Parents have lived everywhere and move as if it were a hobby. My mom's parents are dead. But if my Grandma were alive she would be the one person who had history in BC, who was born and grew up here. Mostly it feels as if my family is really from both nowhere and everywhere and only very slightly from here.

There are two places that I feel connection to by memory. First, the house I grew up in on Applehill Crescent. Second, My grandparents house on 56th Ave, although not so much the house as the property: a half acre lot filled with trees and treasures my Opa had collected. They sold the property a couple of years ago and with it cut loose the last tethers of my childhood to the places I grew up.

I have been trying to escape Vancouver for 7 years. The farthest I really got was Abbotsford. People in Abbotsford are rooted in a way that I had not really experienced before. Families have been there, going to the same church for 3 or 4 generations. For them, Abbotsford is home in a way that for my family doesn't exist.

Do I have a home?

To a certain degree I, perhaps, feel most at home on the road. Travelling.

I watched a show called "The Riches" about a family of Irish American gypsies that are grifters by trade until they wind up stealing some identities and settling down in the biggest "con" of all - living the American dream. It is an amazing series that didn't survive the writers strike and as such ends on a cliffhanger. They struggle as a family to stay put. I struggle to stay put. I struggle to settle. Apparently its in my blood.

I am often uncertain if I am running away from something or toward something... and how to tell the difference.

While I grew up here, my Dad couldn't shake his travelling roots entirely and so vacations were almost always adventures to new places. I didn't understand people that went to the same place year after year... It seemed so incredibly dull.

But now as I think about it again there is a depth of connection that occurs, is created, is built - a relationship between person and land that develops over time. A relationship... I recognize in others and recognize the absence of it in myself.

I have no land. I have no home.

Amy's family is more settled than mine. My sister's husband's family is very rooted locally. I think this is perhaps part of the reason my parents gravitate toward them. Land exerts a certain gravity even relationally.

How can I be human without land?
Where is my garden?
What land is God leading me to?
Where shall I plant vines?

How do you feel connected or disconnected from land/nature?
Is your life rooted in a particular place?
How do you think that effects you?