October 7, 2022

A few weeks ago, I was at a dinner party and toward the end of the evening, I launched a question: where do you come from? where have you lived? where has been your home? Each friend responded, and their stories revealed facets of their lives we previously did not know. Many of them moved frequently, due to parents’ jobs or vocations, and those frequent moves shaped them. A few grew up in just a few homes, in the same town or a few towns, and that also shaped them.

I returned to my own home that night, and thought about where do I come from. I grew up as an Army brat, and although we did not move as frequently as some military families, we moved about 15 times before I graduated from high school, living in five different states. You have to learn to make friends fast, or you don’t have any. You have to learn to be flexible and adapt quickly. It also provides perspective that growing up in one town does not give you. I certainly saw my segregated high school town differently from my classmates who had lived there all their lives. 

A song floated into my head the night of the dinner party, a hymn that we sing at my UU church. The title comes from a Paul Gauguin painting: Where Do We Come From?

Where do we come from?

What are we?

Where are we going?

Mystery, mystery, life is a riddle and a mystery.