I sometimes feel the pull of the ocean, sometimes the forest, sometimes the sun. My soul longs to be in wilder environs than these rural, agricultural mid country lands.
And then I remember how I felt before community and how I feel now with it! Not that I couldn't build another if I had to, my transient childhood ensures I probably could but this community I find myself in now is stronger and more loving than anything I have ever experienced before and I am not willing to give that up.
I was born 20 miles from where I’ve ended up yet spent very little time there, so had little connection to this land. I was born, we moved around a few times within the area, lived with grandparents nearby but then we moved to Australia and began the travelling life that would become my norm.
I moved house, school, county and country so often that I couldn’t build a community of friends. I left each place with one or two friends I would keep in touch with, some of whom I am still connected to now, but I never had the feeling of someone having known me from the start, I never experienced a web of support. In some ways the independent girl and then woman in me found this liberating but in many ways it was incredibly isolating.
London was my breaking point. I was moving every 6 months and existing within yet another transient culture like the ones I had grown up in and my soul began to scream out for something more. I felt desolate and empty by the end of my time there, it had tested the limits of what I could endure.
And then a series of synchronous events led me to leave London for a ‘holiday’ that I never came back from. And so here I am... back where I began and after 29 moves in as many years I finally found roots. A few years later and I have found a community of dreams, one that I thought only happened in movies.
When I was a little girl living in isolated rural settings around the world, I regularly fantasised about being able to walk to friends houses and the sense of belonging that might bring. It seemed like a dream that had no way of ever coming true yet my heart longed for it. My heart heard a call and wouldn't quiet until I listened and as terrifying as it was I took many leaps to arrive where I am now. Living out my childhood dream with a tribe of women all living within 10 minutes of my door.
So my soul might call for the wild but I know my heart NEEDS my tribe and this spiralling journey from the starting point of the East Midlands to the farthest reaches of the Earth and back again to this central point tells me that I am here for a reason and that this is my home.
Community weaves the thread of heart back into the fabric of life and I am forever grateful to each and every woman who has welcomed me into her life here in this little town.
Carly x
Photo of my tribe (minus Laura Wildgoose!) at our girl Nisha's wedding reception (photo by @rising_tides)
