Belonging is very important. That’s why there are families, and clubs, and neighborhoods, and schools, and teams.

In some ways, everybody belongs somehow somewhere to something.

In other ways, not.

I’ve always been both, but too often not.

I was always little and poor. I felt inferior because I was short and didn’t have money, we rented our house when everybody else owned theirs. I was home alone so much of the time because nobody was there. My mother was off wherever, for years, finding other husbands. I didn’t have a stable family I could invite friends over to, didn’t get out much, didn’t know how to hang out. People would do whatever people would do when they were around each other, but I never learned how because I wasn’t there.

And I was smart. I read books and listened to classical music. Seemed like I was the only one who did.

Then I got older, a little taller but still short, moved up in school, afraid to mingle because I didn’t know how, couldn’t buy a burger because that cost money which I didn’t have.

I had some friends, mostly at school. I joined some clubs, did activities, even sometimes forgot that I didn’t belong.

Then people would go wherever they go when they go wherever, and I was alone some more because I still didn’t belong.

They would say, “You think too much.”

“I wish you would.”

“I got better things to do.”

“I don’t.”

I learned to feel sorry for myself, but that didn’t help because I didn’t even belong with myself just being myself.

I don’t think of myself as being unusual, but people said I was.

“You’re not usual, you’re different.”

I said, “We go to the same school in the same class in the same grade.”

“Yeah, but you read the books.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but you understand them.”

“Don’t you?”

“Naw, not so much. And your music is not our music. If we go to a party, you act like you don’t belong.”

“But I’m there.”

“In the corner. And you leave early.”

“Because I have to walk home.”

“We could give you a ride. We have, lots of times.”

“I know. I’m pathetically grateful. Just drop me off at the corner, I’ll walk the rest of the way. I don’t have a house I can invite you over to, and I don’t know how to be comfortable around people, no matter how hard I try.”

“Try harder. You feel sorry for yourself, don’t you?”

“Somebody has to.”

“I don’t buy that.”

“But you could if you wanted to because you can afford it, but I can’t.”

“We’re still friends, right?”

“As often as we can.”

Then I got married.

Suddenly I belonged.

For more than sixty years.

A belonging to family, and then the world.

Shirley was a miracle of belonging. She belonged in the big world because she knew how and spent a lot of time there. She was teaching me.

She was teaching me how, and I was learning.

But in so many ways she was also like me. She read books and listened to classical music.

But she also watched foreign films, and spoke some Greek, knew foods beyond what came in cans or frozen dinners. She was a revelation.

And she was an outsider too. Ahead of her time. In junior high, she and two other guys created a science club, did experiments, made hydrogen. She also had girl friends and knew how to hang out.

When we got married, we hung out together. We made a neighborhood.

Shirley was good with people, better than I ever was. People sought her out and wanted to be around her. It was mutually inclusive.

For me, teaching was my world, and for hours every day, I belonged. My students and I hung out together.

I did have outside friends, made more sometimes all by myself without help. The world was expanding, getting better.

Shirley was where I belonged and I didn’t need to be anywhere else. But true love is magic and lets you find ways to belong outside yourself in a larger loving world.

Suddenly I was everywhere and found ways to belong anywhere. If I went to parties and sat on the sidelines, I could talk to strangers for hours and we were no longer strangers.

Belonging is not mere physical proximity, it’s a state of mind. It’s a great state to be in, and I love it.

I love people, and I love wherever I am because that’s where I belong.

I elicit a response. “You’re not from around here, are you, stranger? Well, pull up a chair, sit a spell, you’re no tourist just passing through, you belong.”