Longing for Belonging
- 12
- 12
- 09
She sat there. In the back of the bustling coffee shop. At a small table. Hunched over her computer. Her brow was furrowed with concentration and longing. There were no smiles. She sipped her coffee and checked her watch. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. She looked up from time to time, squinting, studying the world around her. A world blurry and benign. She watched the bundled strangers who waited for lattes and muffins and happiness. She noticed the black. The black coats and hats and gloves. The black boots scuffed from so much walking. The black coffee. Pure and strong before the milk.
She stared at that screen, that familiar and fabled screen. That took her away from the world and took her to the world. She fumbled with those buttons, those black buttons blanketed in letters and numbers and symbols. Those buttons that helped her and hurt her. Those buttons that had become part of her. She huddled there, alone, all alone, and yet surrounded. Surrounded by people she could see, but didn’t know. And by people she couldn’t see, but had grown to know and love and need. She sat there, in a different world. But still real. In moments of pause, she wondered if she belonged in that world. Or in any.
She wondered what it meant to belong. She wondered whether belonging was fact or fiction. Whether it was something she needed and longed for, but could never have. Like peace. And order. And time. All alone and surrounded, she wondered about these big things, these vast and indulgent things that crept into her mind on a fungible Friday afternoon, amid the midtown holiday bustle. And when these thoughts got to be too much and too loud, she shut down. She stood up. She put on her smile and her coat. Her black coat. She caught the eyes of strangers who knew. Who fidgeted with gadgets and checked watches. Who waited patiently for fancy coffees and answers they’d never have.
And then she walked out. Into the air. Into the cold. Into the world she loved desperately and humbly, but would never begin to understand. She walked toward a far more frivolous world. Awash in a sea of grays, she suddenly needed black and white. She longed to float among fine things and fine women. To finger raw silks and bold sequins. To find a dress. The perfect dress. To fit. Once there, in that winsome world, once hers, she was overwhelmed by the odor, the otherness. In this world, this glittering and glamorous world, she felt she no longer fit. And so she left. Again. Walking away. Chilled by icy awareness. Auspiciously alone. In a fit of nutritious abstraction. Toward home.
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Do you think the longing for belonging is part of what it means to be human? Why do New Yorkers wear so much black?
Can I just say how happy I am that you’ve been posting so early in the morning so often lately? That way I can devour your writing, and make my breakfast more “well-balanced.”
I love this lyrical take on this issue of lines, of belonging. And I absolutely think that there is a human urge toward fitting in, toward being able to consider ourselves a part of some larger community. But, like you, I think, I have stopped drawing black lines between worlds. I have stopped assigning automatic preference to conversations with people I can see, because seeing someone doesn’t necessarily mean they are hearing me.
Really lovely post, Aidan.
And I love your use of color – relating blacks, whites and grays, how color can define and blur perspective. You describe a feeling so many of us share but feel so utterly alone in.
Yes, yes I do. I think that it’s all about relationships and choosing this over that.. it’s the human thing.
This was a pure, raw and beautiful post.
I imagine so. Maslow placed it in the middle of his hierarchy of needs, to emphasize its importance for our path to self-actualization.
When I moved to a new apartment, within the same town, I felt depressed. The new place was what I wanted, but I lacked that sense of belonging that I felt in our old neighborhood. I didn’t know where I fit in. I was lost.
Now, I am forging new friendships. I am treading new paths through fog and storm. I am beginning to see where I fit in the the neighborhood puzzle.
Yes, we as humans need to feel like we belong.
longing for belonging is a concept that i have a love/hate relationship with. i love having a sense of community, of belonging to a community, sharing common interests with those you have chosen to belong with… on the flip side of that i hate belonging. i find myself detesting this concept more and more in the little navy officer’s pilot wife bullshit that i live in. i am defined by so many different words, adjectives, etc that have nothing to do with me simply because i belong to my husband who does what he does for a living. i don’t like belonging with “them” nor do i want to. so i do the opposite of longing to belong with that particular group and i isolate myself from it. do i still long for belonging??? i guess… but on my own terms.
why do new yorkers wear so much black??? i dunno. you’re the new yorker! but i do know that i like it. it is a defining quality you new yorkers have.
A desire to belong seems like such a fundamental need. Some of us carry it more intensely. Fortunately, we live in a world of so many different communities, we can find belonging in many ways that are less traditional and restrictive than they once were. It is – as Martha might say “a good thing.”
As for black, very chic, and very Parisian as well. (I’m all for it! Along with a crisp white blouse paired with black, pearls or silver, or grey as a stunning neutral, also offset with white and black. (I’ve been reading Tish, and remembering the delights of dressing in Paris. What can I say?)
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. As of last night, I now have the ability to respond to your individual comments and all of you have that same ability to respond to each other. I think this should add another dimension to the compelling conversation that is already taking place here on ILI. I am thrilled!
I think humanity lives in the tension of longing and belonging – and it should be celebrated – and maybe it is…
I haven’t been to New York in sooooooo long, so I can’t answer you about why New Yorkers wear so much black.
I think it covers the fat rolls. LOL
It is hard to find a place to belong sometimes. Sometimes you think you belong, but then you realize you have changed, that you are not who you once were…..