A Sampler of Shorter Essays

You Belong Here

by Audrey Yeardley

“This is an Old Soul,” said the midwife, when she handed you to me.

Which was just as well, given that I felt so alone.

And me thinking, If it hadn’t been for you coming, I’d have gone elsewhere.

Not blaming you, you understand. This you must understand. It was you coming that had kept me from going, so tired was I of waste and delay; the passing of time.

And me thinking I never thought it would be like this, after all that wanting to bring you back.

When you were nine months old and, so obviously a wise and observant child, you spoke to me.

Before this our communication had been through glances, your small fingers pointing at things, a strange kind of intuitive sharing of what was happening — or not happening — but, on this day (in this moment) I had gone so deep into unhappiness about what was not happening that I had become unaware of anything but myself.

You were in your high chair, sucking your thumb in your usual reflective way, absorbing my mood. I feel bad about that, but things were not good at that time.

I had washed my hair, wrapped strands around bright pink curlers, and I know my eyes were bright with unshed tears.

You were nine months old and you had never strung words into anything but quiet mutterings, practising sounds as you sat in your small playpen.

Now, you took your thumb out of your mouth and, in the gruffest of Yorkshire voices, you said: “Tha’ll be alright, Love.”

And then you cried, and I cried.

And I knew (really knew) that you were that child who had come back with me, encouraging and sharing something about “belonging.”

 

You Belong Here, Dancing Solo

by Phil Brachi

Here’s one for us abused kids. Growing up, maybe we’ll surprise ourselves.

Imagine boys-only ballroom dance lessons in uptight 1950s England. From age eight my single-sex boarding schools conferred gender confusion, bullying, beatings, mismatched boxing and a great library. Following my body-hating teens and twenties, the osteopath found seventeen vertebrae misaligned. Yet dance has healed my life.

No longer defined by my worst experience, at sixty-seven I front Mid Wales’s tightest street band — fast samba reggae with a twist of breakbeat. Freestyle dance can be deeply healing, coaxing the spine towards its long-lost, laid-back neutral. Shut-down lungs re-open gradually, gauging progress: a single in-breath can take minutes.

Inner body awareness and skeletal mechanics agree — anywhere within the natural range that I can’t move easily, there must be a corresponding tension at the centre of gravity. Breathing there, behind the navel (the Barefoot Doctor books help), will release decades of blocked energy wherever it lurks. Stretch the joints Yin yoga-style and you can hear the body-popping! And it’s all in the dance.

The band practice forty miles away and I don’t attend, so their beats feel fresh at gigs. Eyes often closed, my intellect on hold, they dance me: air-sculpting rhythms in the moment, no time for ‘throwing moves’. It’s liberation, something we can share and spread, a communicable ease.

Gaia-wide no culture is without its music; dance stands proxy for sex. Musicians relish dancers while audiences grip iPhones. Cross from the rim to the centre, yourself first and then dare others: step out from behind those screens, touch real life. Limbs free, joints open, (Five Fingers footwear is a revelation). Partners arrive.

So bring loose clothing and whatever music moves you, and join me dancing. In front of friends and strangers, self-esteem in motion, we’ll embody our belonging.

 

You Belong Here because you are The Universe Itself

by Bill Harvey

Growing up I never had a feeling of belonging. I was a natural meditator so I had a reason for being a hermit but didn’t know it and held it against myself. That alienated me from other kids and adults.

The stuff going through my head did not translate well into comfortable conversations with other people so I didn’t have them. My showbiz parents tried to offer me their world and I slipped in and out of it without a sense of belonging there either.

At age 12 when I realized there was a wisdom voice in my inner head senate, I began to take counsel when it spoke. Not schizophrenic in the textbook sense I was aware that most of the voices in my head were recordings of other people who had influence over me. The wisdom voice was different and its advice never led me astray.

One day it surprised me when it said “I am God and so is everybody else.” It took 20 more years and ultimately I explained it all to myself in a way that harmonizes with science with no contradiction.

I now feel that I am in a consciousness, an aspect of the One Consciousness, and what I take to be my separate self is merely the way the One Self feels living my life through me. I am pasted into and a piece of the Universe rather than a separate blob of matter in a big endless box of such objects.

Not only do I belong but I represent a unique packet combination with unique potentials to be realized and played out in the Game. The Game would not be complete without me. I belong, we all belong.

 

Dooo-weee? Wop! Do-wooow!

by Michael Mayes

Do we belong here? I never considered the question. I considered the idea that we don’t belong here, given our reputation. Any reason I come up with as to why we belong here might at best be surface bullshit. How dare I write about whether humans belong on this earth considering its present state?

I’m not a sage, guru or prophet. I can’t prove that we belong here. Maybe the wise men of old were as confused as I am, and only sought order to pacify their doubts about existence actually mattering. Am I trying to dig myself out of the hole begun when I had the nerve to think my life actually has a purpose? The question lingers.

“Thinking doesn’t stand up to life.” Thoughts collapse, fold boxes around me, or go far beyond me. As the Hindu saying goes, mind will monkey. Sometimes I feel like my mind’s sole purpose is to negate, and cut away at life.

Born with the Sun in Sagittarius and Moon in Taurus, I crave physical contact with the raison d’etre. Sex, cannabis, music, acting, meditation, skateboarding, Mother Nature — all have one thing in common: they take me beyond. They all require one thing, my body. They prove to me that I belong here, if only to enjoy them.

To feel like I belong here on this Earth, more is required than the idea. I need to feel it in my body, where thoughts disappear into sole purpose of existence. When I step onto a stage, ride my skateboard, or just take a deep breath of fresh air, get out of my mind, and settle into my body, nothing can take that away. It’s as simple as that, and I invite you here.