Reaffirming Locality from Clayton H Windatt on Vimeo.
After traveling for long periods of time and often suffering trauma in regions that are familiar but not home; I often feel the impulse to reaffirm my connections to my family, my region, my community… my locality. Relationships become strained through travel and bonds need to be maintained with effort. Technology cannot evade distance or replace touch.

Upon returning home I need to talk, interact and know. I am with family, in community. I look into eyes and hear voices. I wrap my arms around loved ones hugging bodies making connection. These actions position me into myself allowing me to reaffirm my awareness of who I am. These actions allow me to continue to be self.

I also need physical connection to place, to home. I make a meal in my kitchen and serve it to my family. Reaching down I feel the grass of my front yard like I have many times before. I put my toes in the sand of the beach in Garden Village and hear the water of Lake Nipissing. This all allows me to feel welcome. The emotional connection that I receive from these physical actions grounds me in self further…

What if I want more? What if these emotions and sensations make me want to be positioned within self more, to be more myself than I have ever been? What can I do? There are spaces that are part of home that I have not experienced, parts of my environment that I have only seen but feel the impulse to touch, be part of and immersed within.

Reaffirming my locality makes me realize the things I missed and the things I never knew. My locality is sacred to me and connecting with it makes me want to connect further. Perhaps these connections will make me never leave again… or at least they open my mind to the possibility of staying.