“I’m a volcano refugee,” rolled off thousands of tongues as Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull crippled the trans Atlantic last week. Mine was one of those tongues. Stranded in London as a result of the volcanic ash hovering over Northern Europe, I found myself uttering these words. It did, after all, sound funny.
But as I kept waking up in my friend’s flat to grim reports that there was no hope that the ash would disappear, my mood changed. I lost my sense of humor. “Refugee” was no longer a punch line. It became something I took seriously and, as a result, gained a new perspective on.
Most of us know refugees as those forced out of their homes as a result of politics, war, terror or natural disaster (real natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, not volcanic ash over Harrod’s.) They are people who are in desperate need of clothing, food, shelter and medical care. But as I wandered London’s streets repeatedly listening to Turkish music as my comfort, I came to realize that we in the West overlook one thing a refugee needs: a sense of belonging.
Anyone who moves, travels or lives the “hybrid” life grapples with identity: who am I? And how do I fit in here? How, I wondered as it became less and less clear when I would return home, do those forcibly displaced answer these questions? How does a refugee keep his or her emotional home? I kept mine with music and friends. But is keeping an emotional home as easy as popping a CD or talking those you know?
Is there something deeper we seek when we’re faced with the unknown?
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