belonging

Suitcases by Haddie Grace

original song by Haddie Grace

Lyrics:

We’ll unpack our suitcases
Begin to embrace this
Unfamiliar place so
Different from what we’ve known

We’ll learn and go exploring
We know our best stories
Happen well outside of
Our comfort zone

We can make anywhere home

Constant changing is our sameness
Uprooting is our routine
We’ll bloom in winter
Our resilience is our stability

I am all the places that changed me
I am all the cities that made me me
I am all the people who named me
Home is wherever I happen to be

Not a number on a street

I’ll send you a letter
We’ll compare the weather
I need to borrow languages to tell you how I feel
You’ll listen like a true friend
Like when we jumped in the deep end
We’ve moved six times since then
That’s how you know that it’s real

Constant changing is our sameness
Uprooting is our routine
We’ll bloom in winter
Our resilience is our stability

I am all the places that changed me
I am all the cities that made me me
I am all the people who named me
Home is wherever I happen to be

Not a number on a street

I’m moving again
Soon you’ll hear it in my accent
Uprooting again
Daydreaming in past tense

I’ll unpack my suitcases
I promise I’ll embrace this
Unfamiliar place so
Different from what I’ve known

I promise I’ll be open
Won’t bury my emotions
My heart’s caught between oceans
But I can make anywhere home

We can make anywhere home

I am all the places that changed me
I am all the cities that made me me
I am all the people who named me
Home is wherever I happen to be

We are all the places that changed us
We are all the cities that shaped us
We are all the people who named us
Home is wherever we’re known and we’re loved

Not a number on a street

Thoughts from the author:

Just wanted to explain two lyrics.
“We are all the people who named us” — When you are invited into a new culture, you are often given a new name. In Oniyan (Bassari)in Senegal, there are ordinal names meaning “first son” or “second daughter” that tell your place in the family. In Southeast Senegal I am “Ingama.” In Dakar, I am “Khady” which is short for Khadija, but works for me because it sounds like “Haddie.” In the US, various groups of friends have given me different nicknames, which is different than cultural names but still, in the act of naming there is affection, a sense of relationship, and belonging. And of course, my parents named me Hadassah, and my family is a part of me as well.


“I am all the people who named me” is another way of saying my identity has been shaped by all the people who are important to me.
“Constant changing is our sameness” — sameness being the shared identity of all third culture kids.

Other original songs by Haddie Grace

Denizen (Distance)
Neutral Room
Bittersweet

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Lost Is Just A Word – Original Song By Nick Riedell

Lost is just a word we use
When you can’t find your home
There’s purpose in the processes
I know, I know

Well how can you be lost
If your home’s nowhere?
How can you be found
When you are too scared?

Just follow the light
It’ll guide you home

This is your life
A life for loving
This is your life
So rise above it
This is your life
So live all you got

Music and lyrics by Nick Riedell

See more of Nick’s music here

By CulTuremiKs, ago

What Keeps You Here?

a strawberry

What keeps you here
I ask my heart
Stranger in a strange land, so white, so clean

These fields in June, she laughs
Your red-stained fingers
A taste of heaven beneath each leaf
And this sky expansive and clear

I wonder why, my heart, you hold
Steady on small delights after
Months of sifting memories
Under grey skies
Testing each day as we
Walk out into this not-all-bad
But still foreign place

I am young, says she –
A child who races, explores,
Finds beauty even here
And welcomes the new, trusting
Inviting sweet existence even
Within this space of not belonging

I hold out for
Simple Wonders;
Encounters with the Presence

Crouched amongst the rows I ponder this
Sifting through the too-soon and the already-past
I find it.
The ripest, the reddest berry
Welcomes me into the perfect balance
Proves to me that
Yes, child, even here, even you,
Have abundant peace.
The taste and texture of now.

By Bree Becker, a third culture kid from Rwanda and Kenya who now lives in Oregon, USA.

By CulTuremiKs, ago

In Between – A TCK Documentary

“In Between” is a 23-minute documentary that explores the identity development of people who have grown up as third culture kids. Identity is our sense of who we are and guides our interests and our life choices. Moving between cultures affects the development of identity. Through the stories of three TCKs, the film investigates the often-overlooked effects on adults who had international upbringings.

By Elsa Hendriks

Watch more documentaries here!

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Somewhere Closer To Near – Home

Somewhere closer to near but far,

I come from new names of old lands,
Oceans, islands, continents,
Snow and sand.

Between the blood spilled
for selfish reasons,
the crucifixion of sheep
as camouflage for our fears;
Home…

The place I come from …

Sometimes its people disappear
with the wind,
Its shape shifts from blinks to tears
And whenever it does so
it turns me into a foreign,
again.

That’s how I get lost;
how I get home;
simply to leave
again.

I come from seashells,
different smells,
Tastes, colors,
Fetishes in the spotlight,
the holy of brothels!


Where I come from…
I sleep naked,
covered by 3 blankets,
waking up sweaty.
I wear boots at the beach,
Slippers at parties
and I’m barefoot in the streets.
Never ugly, nor pretty,
the eccentric, the exotic
Neither usual, nor repugnant,
yet intriguing, deceiving.


The place I come from
is a loop, a pattern in space,
not very different from here,
quite similar actually!
It feels good to be back
for the first time;
Again.

By Caio Leão 

By CulTuremiKs, ago