homeland for a nomad

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion.” --Jack Kerouac

I don't mind being spread thin so much anymore,
but I worry sometimes that I will stretch too thin to hold anything together.

and I don't mind feeling at home in many different places,
but I refuse to forget
and keep a little piece of that place inside me, which is always wanting to go back.
Everywhere I go, I want to go back.

"It has been the custom that those who are away from the homeland where they spent part of their youth, yearn for it, whether they be Bedouin or city people.
-Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi
The Extraction of Gold, or an Overview of Paris and The Honest Guide for Girls and Boys page 33 (A Discourse on the Homeland)

I love traveling to visit new things and to be with people,
but I never really leave
it makes me reluctant to go again - to call a place home, even if briefly, to which I may never return.

I used to think it was good to be so able to move and adapt,
but I wonder if this comes at an expense of being able to stay for any longer term and maintain anything solid.

In high school history, they taught us that when the British and German sides each dug their trenches, the British expected the war to be over soon and so moved quickly and efficiently to get by with just what they needed since of course nobody wanted to stay in the trenches long-term. Certainly, nobody wanted to be in the trenches, but the Germans, on the other hand, steadily prepared for a long-term drawn-out conflict. They went into the unpleasant scenario of trenches with the prospect of being there for a long time. While the British were forced to roll in the mud of what they expected to be temporary housing, the Germans had prepared bunks for themselves that kept them in much better condition.