belonging – Alyssa Bittner-Gibbs

What the Water Knows

There are people whose ethos reach us through a sentence, from many miles away, long after they claimed it. Since this summer, Wendell Berry has been keeping me company. Others may leave a garden, a footpath, a stubborn patch of green that might so easily have become something else. In today’s world, we may struggle to remember that we inherit more than what has gone wrong. We also inherit what humans before us loved enough to keep. So with Berry in mind, I’m trying to think more about life’s quieter bequests. The places that still make room for us. The words that arrive at just the right time. The care we never witnessed, but whose consequences we are able to enjoy. What would it mean to recognise this inheritance while it is still alive, and leave something living in return?

The Last Known Address

Thirteen years and an ocean separate me from Massachusetts, yet somewhere in its democracy there is still a place for my voice. I no longer live with the consequences of its elections, but I cannot separate myself from the history that made my vote possible. Between the women who fought to be heard and the country I have learned to call home from afar lies a question of citizenship, conscience, and belonging: what do we owe the places we have left, and what do we owe the people whose struggles made our choices possible?

The Right Kind of Different

A century ago, Åland’s future was settled through a promise: that peace could protect difference, and that power could be bound by obligations. People have built lives inside that promise. We still do. Its worth is measured in the language our children can live in, the rights we can rely on, and the dignity of being heard by those who govern us. In Eetu Isto’s The Attack, Finland defends her law book against an empire. The artwork accompanying this essay asks what happens when she finds herself on the other side of the struggle. From Helsinki to Mariehamn, we know what it means to ask power to keep its word. We must carry that knowledge with us when the power is ours.

Wonder at First Sight

Perhaps the strangest thing about making a home somewhere is how quickly the extraordinary becomes ordinary. The landscape fades into the commute. People become their roles. Institutions become explanations for themselves. Then someone arrives with an unfamiliar accent, an impertinent question, or delight in something you had stopped noticing—and the world briefly returns in full colour. Such encounters aren’t always comfortable. They may restore something we love; they may change what we can bear to overlook. But I have never wanted belonging purchased at the price of seeing less.

Not Lost in Translation

Why is alyssa.ax in English? Partly because it is my native language. Partly because writing has to remain sustainable. But also because English lets things travel — and because I think Åland is fascinating enough that more people should know what the hell goes on here.

belongingA collection of 13 posts