The last four years I lived in Chicago was the longest period of time I’d lived anywhere since college, and the longest I’d lived in a single house in my whole life. I was sad to leave. Although I probably won’t ever live in Chicago again, it felt like home and I certainly would have lived there longer. By the time I left, I felt more connected to a variety of people and institutions than ever before, which made leaving Chicago feel like a big loss. But, as I’ve discovered, leaving just about anywhere feels like a loss, but moving leads to adaptation and opens new doors to new experiences.
I was recently asked, “Where’d you learn to drive?” as a proxy to “Where are you from”? and I have to say I appreciated that framing of the question. I’ve never really felt “from” anywhere, even though I’ve often answered Washington State (because, indeed, that learned to drive there and spent different parts of my childhood there) or the Pacific Northwest to express a general sense of belonging to, and affinity for, the region.
About four years ago, I captured some of this in tattoo imagery courtesy of the talented Quori Senyon. At that point, I’d spent three of the last 5 years in East Africa, had recently made a visit back home to the Pacific Northwest, and had recently finished reading the wonderful Exit West by Mohsin Hamid for the second time. I had long wondered if I would ever get a tattoo, but one of Hamid’s observations in the novel was stuck in my head: “We are all migrants through time.”
How could I capture this idea in imagery? As a perpetual sort of migrant – albeit not at all the specific sort of migrant Exit West is centered around – these words rumbled around in my head for months after finishing the novel for the first time. It was a beautiful sentiment that created the opportunity to have empathy for the migrant experience but at the same time universalized a small part of it too.
In the novel, doors represent windows through time and space, so I knew I wanted some sort of door to be the focal point, and given my recent life experiences, the other images seemed obvious: an acacia tree representing both Somaliland and Abaarso School as well as Tanzania, and the doors opening to a sort of spiritual home on the Washington Coast in Olympic National Park. Quori wove these together and created the wonderful piece of art that lives on my arm.
The central metaphor of doors being windows through time and space had provided me comfort during this transition. As a child and teenager, I moved so much that despite the challenges it presented for me socially, it felt normal. From Washington to California, to Washington to Arizona, and back to Washington again, moving felt like something that happened every couple of years. I have carried that ability to get and move into my adult life, but found moving on from Chicago sad for all that the move represented in terms of loss of community.
And yet, as I’ve begun to adjust to St Louis, my tattoo is a physical manifestation of my capacity to move through space and time and adapt to new circumstances. And, in adapting to new circumstances, I discover and rediscover new things about myself and my life. I can persist through obstacles, anxiety, and sadness, and I can see beauty in challenges. Indeed, Hamid in the novel says:
Every time a couple moves they begin, if their attention is still drawn to one another, to see each other differently, for personalities are not a single immutable color, like white or blue, but rather illuminated screens, and the shades we reflect depend much on what is around us.
I quoted this line in my wedding vows a few years ago, as my wife and I had made many moves together, each time discovering something different and novel in each other. In this transition, we discover new parts of ourselves, and in moving we adapt to new circumstances and grow closer as we face shared challenges. The present continues, the future awaits, and the past lives on in our memories.