In an excerpt from Of Many Lands, I describe my difficulty in finding a place for myself in my passport country:
The first year I am in Washington—I am 14 now—I spend each weekend earning money for a planned summer trip back to Holland. I am determined to go back, even though most of my friends have left. The second year in Washington I spend thinking about Borneo, the place my father has been assigned and for which he leaves half-way into my school year, the place we will move at the end of the year. It is as though I never quite put my feet down in Washington. Washington is a place my family lives in between the REAL places. Finally, when I am in my late twenties, as I discover landscapes I love, dig into a field of work, and forge fast friendships, the U.S. begins to feel less like a movie set.
What is your relationship to your home country? Is it your REAL country? What have you done, or can you do, to make some place your real country? Reflect on this.
Originally posted Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
Sara Mansfield Taber 