The community sense, that feeling of ownership with a person or people with common interests which make us realize about how special we are. I remember having this feeling for many things in the past for me, my friends from the block in which i lived, my friends which became my family, my cousins, my father and brothers, my team mates from sports, my geek (and not geek) friends from school/college, my work colleagues, stranger and of course my kids and wife... and now the international community of a group of strangers, at least most of 'em were strangers; all of us sharing an interest in common, the love for our country.
This is a rare but familiar feeling, because i have memory of being in the other side being cheered by the crowd which most of the times shares the same as you, affinity for the sport/colors or simply to support a specific person or people. I almost forgot how cool its to cheer you country, gives you a sense of ownership something you share with others than you did or did not know.
My kid ask me about the flag; "What our flag means, dad?" -she asked, i replied: "the green represents the Life/Live/hope on of our country, the white means peace/unity we have in our country and the red represents the blood of all of those who died for us to give us a country." without realizing i almost have a automatic chip for answering that, which surprised me. Later she said also she meant to know why the shield on the center of the white (an eagle grabbing from its peak a snake on top of a cactus on top of olive and laurel leafs) and told her the story about the Mexica people and their nomad history and how they consider it a sing of the gods to establish on that land, but really what our flag means to us... what it means for a group of ex-pats, a group of estranged persons which wants to feel they're at Home.
We share a lot of the sense of community by default, most of the times we don't realize what it took from this story to get us here. Some other times we get so in deep with our carried on life that also we oversight that... today i didn't today i remembered i always will be a Mexican and cant deny it first because i can't, second because i won't want.
