Querencia

On my always persistent urge to find new words, I came across this one.

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“A place where one feels safe”, sounds good, doesn’t it? What if we were to leave this place? Would we never feel safe again? Or do we have more than one of these places in our lifetime?

It’s a standard protocol my brain follows: question everything.

I guess we are allowed to have more than one of such places in our lives. We need to, don’t we? Otherwise how will we feel safe in times when we are away from our querencia? Sure not every place your spend a lot of time in can’t be your querencia, as then it would lose its value. Such special places are usually limited. They give you the best vibes; the kind that leave you at peace, with yourself and with the environment around.

Then I look at the second line, “a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn”. ‘So if I leave this place, my character, I, become weak?’ – my brain enquired.

See it’s one of these times when I feel like my mind rules over my brain. My brain handles technicality, but my mind wanders, it finds solutions, gives me a fresh perspective.

‘No, it means your character and it’s strength get defined by your querencia.’ – my mind replied.

Once we associate ourselves with a place and we feel that it brings peace to our lives, defines ourselves, we suddenly feel threatened by the thought of leaving this place. What we must remember is that even if you leave, you’ll take your querencia with you, within you. It is what defines you, and it won’t change if you change places of your existence. Sure once you come back to it, it’ll feel extraordinary, like it felt the first time, but that does not mean that you are not allowed to find and experience this feeling in more than one place. There can be more than one place that gives you strength, that defines your character. We must not be afraid to swim in new waters.

So whatever your querencia is, take it within you, and add on more places to the list, let’s not be defined by just one querencia, let’s make the world our querencia and let it be defined by us.