molding the territory of my own belonging

"i began to work the clay of my own life again, to mold the territory of my own belonging." - david whyte, crossing the unknown sea. 

i'm reading david whyte's crossing the unknown sea: work and the shaping of identity. i have this notion that we come to the books we need to read at the moment we need to read them. and if we come to them at the wrong time, they don't speak to us (the snow child is just not doing it for me and i'm going to return it to the library without finishing it). it's not the book's fault, it's something within. but when the book and your need align, hello! it's magical.

my encounter with last evening's troglodyte reminds me that i have spent a number of years trying not to be defined by what i do for a living. this is partially because i think that the nature of work is changing and partially because i don't think that my work (or my car or my house) is who i am, i'm far too complex for that.

thus, i only reluctantly listed my current (and several former) workplaces in my mini-bio on our group website because i have come to feel that it is expected of me. plus, the things i have done lend credibility to me and my story. no one in denmark can bring themselves to look down on someone who worked for denmark's biggest, most revered company and people also have respect for those who have their own business. so i have ended up in a position where i felt like i had to list those things to be considered legitimate. otherwise, i'm just some foreigner trying to horn in on local business. (if you can make out danish, you'll notice that many of the members have listed how long they're lived in town to boost their credibility.)

for two years, i answered the question of "what do you do?" with a list of the many things that fill my days - horses, kittens, chickens, cooking, laundry, writing, photographing, gardening, conversations, thinking, volunteering, sharing, laughing...but people look at you like you're mental when you do that. a few got it, but mostly, they acted like they thought my danish was bad and i had misunderstood the question. that begins to eat away at you after awhile, so you just revert to custom. perhaps i gave up too easily.

maybe it's time to begin to work the clay of my own life again, to mold the territory of my own belonging.