Behind The Torch – The Marantu Dispatch
There is a kind of belonging that requires no agreement.
It does not ask you to remain familiar.
It does not need you to soften your edges.
It does not reward you for staying the same.
It simply recognizes you.
Most of what we call belonging is proximity.
Shared language.
Shared wounds.
Shared habits of survival.
But real belonging is alignment.
It happens when you are no longer performing yourself
and someone still stands beside you.
When you stop explaining your becoming
and are met with silence that understands.
These are not crowds.
They are rare.
Often they appear late —
after you have shed names, roles, permissions.
After you have crossed thresholds alone.
After you have disappointed rooms that once applauded you.
At first, this feels like loss.
Then, quietly, something changes.
You notice conversations that do not drain you.
Silence that feels companionable.
Differences that do not threaten coherence.
You realize you are no longer being included.
You are being met.
This is not the belonging of blood alone,
nor of ideology, nor of shared history.
It is the belonging of direction.
Those who walk with you now
do not need you to arrive as you were.
They are oriented toward where you are going.
They may not walk far with you.
They may not walk forever.
But while your paths align,
there is no negotiation required.
This is chosen kin.
Not because you selected them,
but because life placed you in the same current
at the same time
with the same integrity.
You do not build this belonging.
You recognize it.
And when it changes — as all living things do —
you bless it, release it, and keep walking.
This is how communities survive without cages.
This is how movements remain alive.
This is how Marantu breathes.
—Uzanenkosi
Torchbearer, Marantu
Year 0 | Marimba 02 | Week 01