community for me is an odd duck. when i get homesick, it is not for a place. there is an ethereal neighborhood, a nonexistent town, but real people inhabit it. those in my life that i love, that i’m intrigued by, that challenge me, that i can relate to, that i call family, that i call friends, that i call random good people i know or hope to know better - these are the denizens of my home. they’ve never all lived in the same place, not all have met, most have little inkling of the other, and all exist in their own community as well. when i am homesick, however, this is the community that i crave for - the assorted collection of eccentric folk i hold close - the town connected by miles upon miles, emails, letters, phone calls, blind luck, faith, and trust.

home sweet home is a strange sort of tao for me - it goes wherever i go, yet is never entirely there. i’m a boy of the present moment, mostly, but a boy who treasures past and future presents as much as the current one. too bad that a continually changing present (i.e. location) leads to a tough road to hold, leads to incredible highs and dangerous lows. it’s the trade off of balance, methinks.

nature strives for it at all times and in all places, balance. we are not free from the struggle. our moods swing reflexively based on the paths we trod, on our life choices. it’s freedom, for some, to maintain a balance of minimal ups and downs, comfort sans extreme. it’s wanderlust for others (choice or curse), a course of wild adventures and confusing slow-time, amazing experiences at all ends of the spectrum - good, bad, and in-between.

perhaps my understanding of the community i call out to, try to hold together in my experience of the world, perhaps that is my balance.

i have no place that i call home, but there are people whom i call home.