Getting off the train, passengers spill out the doors and onto the platform. They merge from every direction, moving toward the first set of escalators. It’s a well-choreographed dance, left, center, center, right. Climb or stand in place. I slow as someone steps in front of me. A bag lightly grazes my arm.

At the top, the crowd forms quickly at the turnstiles. The line moves quickly. The tap pad flashes green. Thunk—a passenger’s oversized purse and lunch box hit its arm. Cleared. I glance at my watch. 9:13. Plenty of time.

Through the turnstile, I lengthen my stride and hurry towards the second set of escalators. I start to round the corner. The escalator dance has stopped. I stretch my body, my brows furrowed. My phone chirps at me, 9:15 am, the meeting reminder.

On the escalator, I go right. A passenger looks over his shoulder before stepping to his left. He begins climbing the stairs but stops. He shifts his bag to his other hand, grabbing the railing. His fingernails tapping time. Another passenger walks up behind him, stops, and leans over the railing. Soon there is a line of passengers standing on both sides of the escalator. The escalator continues its slow crawl.

Arriving near the top, I notice a woman pushing a large baby stroller off the escalator. She pushes down on the stroller handle to lift the front wheels over the stair lip. But the basket on the bottom hangs low, filled with blankets and bags. It’s stuck. She lifts the stroller. She has to move fast; the escalator stairs don’t stop for anyone.

As she pushes the stroller off the escalator, she glances behind her at the left side moving again.

I step off and see a second woman with a stroller. She waves and calls out her friend’s name. Her smile is contagious as the woman exiting the escalator bends down, rearranges the bags below, and smiles back. She laughs. As she reaches her friend, they exchange a few words before going right, walking side by side.

The pedestrian signal flashes green and begins counting down. They nonchalantly push the strollers through the busy crosswalk. The crowd converges around them.

I need to get to my meeting. I turn left. It’s 9:20 am.

Four hours later, I am still thinking about them, wondering if, alone, I would have taken the elevator.

As a teenager, I didn’t fit in among my classmates. After graduation, I moved around searching for home. Once I had a family, I thought I would see my face in the pictures that sat on their mantels. But I still didn’t.

Belonging isn’t only personal. Groups form around shared identities as well—sport teams, unions, protests. We join them so we don’t have to be on the outside and alone. When we are not part of them, it can feel like exclusion.

Some Americans felt this way during this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican artist, performed a thirteen-minute set. It was delivered in Spanish and subtitles did not appear on household televisions.

When the NFL announced Bad Bunny as the performer, the reaction was immediate. People said, we don’t speak Spanish. This is an English-speaking country. Before the show, social media feeds were filled with calls for an English-speaking performer. An alternative concert featuring Kid Rock was aired on YouTube. The show was in English.

For some viewers, in that moment, it felt like not belonging.

I recognized the feeling immediately—but from the opposite direction.

I traveled the last four years searching for belonging. I was among people who looked nothing like me, who spoke a language that I didn’t understand, and in histories that I knew nothing of. I found belonging with a young woman who shared her table and family with me during one of her country’s most important holidays, Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. I didn’t understand the jokes that made her family laugh, and I couldn’t ask for more food or drink. Yet I knew I belonged at her table. I felt it in the offers of more food and the kind hands placed on my arm. Belonging came from a feeling. It did not come from a shared language.

Travel began to show me something I hadn’t understood before. Belonging isn’t always created by sameness. Sometimes it comes from the small signals that tell us we are welcome.

Our sense of belonging is challenged when we don’t see ourselves in the stories that are told or the acts that are performed. When we can’t understand the language being spoken, uncertainty rises. We begin to wonder if we belong.

Not being able to understand the lyrics was equated with exclusion from the show. But exclusion is more than not understanding the lyrics to a musical performance. It’s restricting people from meaningfully participating in society. It is a loss of rights and access. The setting up of barriers to tell people they don’t belong. But exclusion is not the same as not seeing yourself in those around you.

Our country is a pluralistic country, one made of people from all corners of the world. When people immigrated here, they brought with them new foods, cultural traditions, and languages. We love the diversity of foods, but we don’t love the diversity of languages. We frequent Mexican and Chinese restaurants but rarely question if we belong in them. But when we hear unfamiliar languages on the subway or in a restaurant, we question if the people speaking them belong.

We’re taught that belonging comes as a result of sameness. When we gather in the family room and reminisce, we can feel the connections building. A shared language allows us to navigate that experience without thinking about it. Even if we weren’t there originally, we can use language to understand the story. But when the language isn’t known, we don’t hear ourselves reflected back. We find it difficult to identify with and to feel the story. That can make us feel excluded, even when we have a seat at the table. With the Bad Bunny performance, the unfamiliar language left some viewers feeling excluded.

But belonging does not mean seeing yourself in every moment. Instead, it means still having a place when you don’t.

I can feel the vibration of the engine before I hear its roar. I look out over the wing and see the belt loader lifting suitcases into her belly. Cardboard boxes, duffel bags, suitcases covered in clear wrap. If I peer closely enough, I can make out the characters of another language written in black marker. I wonder what stories are hidden in that luggage.

Bags are hefted above shoulders into the overhead bins. Flight attendants traverse the aisles, their heels soft on the carpeted floor. They reach up to close the overfilled bins. Passengers call out across the row, excuse me, I think that’s my seat.

I can feel my legs tingling from the 20,000 steps I walked every day for the last month. I pull out my flight socks—navy blue knee highs, dotted with pink flamingos, tightening as I pull them up my calf. I hurry to get them on, embarrassed to need them. I idly scroll through hundreds of photos. My reminiscing only interrupted by the cacophony of boarding around me. I pull out my phone charger and Kindle, shoving both into the seatback pocket. My backpack, still stuffed, lies at my feet. It holds everything I need to get through this flight.

My seatmates arrive. They will be my companions for the fifteen-hour flight home. On some flights, there is silence. Passengers arrive with their ears covered in headphones, staring at the screen, as if they can make the departure come sooner. The silence is broken only by the apology for needing to use the bathroom.

But on this flight, my seatmates want to talk. Sitting down next to me is a Hmong woman. Her American name is Maryann. I’ve shared that I was in Cambodia and Laos. Her voice slows, as she tells me she is a survivor of the Vietnam War refugee camps. She is just returning from visiting her family. Her husband sits quietly next to her, reading a newspaper in a language I don’t understand.

We talk across the armrest. Her kids. My kids. My home—Chicago. Her home—Wisconsin.

As the plane lifts into the air, the flight attendants begin the in-flight announcements. I look out the window. I plug my nose to clear my ears. I turn back towards Maryann, and she is talking softly to her husband. I put on the headphones and start scrolling the entertainment selection. I watch reruns of Friends until dinner is over.

As the flight attendants turn down the lights and close the shades, I go to sleep. I wake up somewhere between where I was and where I’m headed next.

The ferry moved across the Gambia River slowly, the air thick with the sweat of the passengers. Other entrepreneurs sold socks and phone chargers. There was something for everyone. A second girl, water carefully balanced on her head, ignored someone’s request for water. The women across the aisle, shot off a quick text. A moment later, the girl in the flowing blue dress returned.

I watched the young woman every time she passed by me. I looked at the full water bottle in my bag, but I still put my hand up. Searching my wallet, I found a large bill and showed her. The young woman dug in her purse for a moment, looked up at the women on the bench, shaking her head. One of the women dug into her bag, still talking to her friend. It was then that I noticed the bags of empty water bottles sitting at their feet.

Finally, she handed me an assortment of bills and coins. I trusted them.

I drank my water and handed the empty bottle to the women.