What does it mean to “belong"?
Top view of colourful paint chips in a spiral around a lantern on an old wood table.
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Hi out there.
You know those people who walk into a room and seem to know how to talk to everyone? People who carry a natural sense of belonging with them, who don’t appear to question their place in groups?
I’m obsessed with those people.
Firefly is built on the love of language and stories… but even deeper are the questions of belonging.
What does it mean to be a human alongside other humans?
How do we create environments that call in people’s natural urge to nurture, celebrate, and amplify each other’s gifts?
And how can we do the repair needed when belonging gets wounded?
This is the stuff that sends our team into conversations that could last for weeks. And they’ll keep lasting for weeks, because we’ll never fully understand these things, though we’ll always be working to.
I suspect that underneath the layers, no one really knows how to belong.
We all have belonging wounds. We carry them into every room, even if we’re good at hiding them. When we write in groups, of course they come out.
Sharing creative work requires a trust fall into the arms of others. It insists that we believe — at least for a split second — that there’s a place in the world for our voices. That faith can feel impossible, and exhilarating.
So, hi. From my belonging wounds to yours.
Every class we run is an experiment in trust and community. How far will this group go? What obstacles will we uncover? We can’t predict what will happen. We can’t entirely control it. But we can hold the container, with processes, care, and deep attention. It’s amazing what can happen in that space.
I want to live in a world where more people know the feeling of having their voices received, heard, and cherished. I want to start that here, in small ways, small groups, small moments, and then hope it weaves into the bigger fabric that holds us all.
Small goals, right? ;)
We’re excited to create these spaces for you, and with you.
So, hi. 👋 Let’s do this messy work together.
We live in a world where people are creating robotic hands to simulate hand-holding. We need each other, imperfect, confused and trying, just the way we are.
In it with you,
P.S. I could talk about belonging all day long all day strong. If you’re curious for more, here’s a short essay I wrote for the Brockton Writers Series in January.