the tenderness of leaving

It's that time again. Seven days before I leave for the US. My parents begin to say, abruptly, as I climb the stairs, or get up from the dining table:

You know, you don't have to go back to America. This is your home.

and

What are you going back there to do? Do you have jobs lined up?

It gets harder each time, to leave. Although my other world calls, and I know it is not separate from this one. Although the wrench of departure is a precondition for the joy of arrival. Although I know my work is to move between these worlds. To use my extraordinary privilege of global mobility, international platforms, to keep expanding the space for the real work of globalization - the globalization of justice. Of human rights channelled into outcomes (Amartya Sen).

The poem that always comes up for me in connection with goodbyes is e.e. cummings' i carry your heart. I transpose it in my head to Migritude key. Play it to myself, with all the complexity, tension, amplitude, Migritude carries:

i carry your migritudes (i carry them in my migritude)