Homeless

People often ask me where I'm from.

I have never liked that, of all the sundry minutia of our backgrounds to inquire after, that is what has become standard.

My answer?

"Well, I'm from a military family..."

People nod appreciatively, sometimes referencing a distant relative or obscure acquaintance who shares my lifestyle.  I've never understood our obsession with place.  Does my placelessness make people uncomfortable?  On the first day of class, everyone can usually be geographically pigeon-holed as the Californian beach bum, the Texan bigwig, the East Coast liberal, the born-and-raised Utahn, the tough-as-nails New Yorker... and then there's me.


The geographical gypsy.


Where was I born?  Provo, Utah.

Where am I from - most recently? Suffolk, England. 

Where's home?  Well, my family is stationed in Maryland...


Where's my favorite place I've lived?  Umm, you heard me say England, right?  Like a train ride from Paris, 2-hour drive from London?  Also, Virginia was awesome, I loved it there.

I never know what people mean when they ask, "Where are you from?"  Origin?  Birthplace?   Most memories?  Longest duration of stay?

It shouldn't make me such an oddball, right?  People move all the time, we're a mobile society!  But I can't honestly look at one past home and call that my one and only home.

Most of my childhood occurred under the shadow of Utah mountains and the Pike's Peak in Colorado, interrupted briefly by a year of kindergarten in a smoky suburb if L.A., California.  Middle school was spent in the sweltering heat of Tucson, AZ.  High school happened in verdant Virginia.  A year of work in New Mexico precluded two years volunteering in the heavy humid summers and harsh Siberian winters of Bulgaria.  A few months of respite in England were all I had before returning to my birth state to attend college.  Same town, too.  I actually got my tonsils taken out two years ago in the same hospital where I was born.  How's that for full circle.


UT, CO, AZ, NM, CA, VA, BG, UK... see how I might have trouble nailing one point on the map as "home"?


Once we moved, I usually tried to just focus on the new home, new friends and new opportunities.  I got very used to relationships with deadlines and looked forward to the latest clean slate to redefine myself.  This might have socially stunted me a bit, but I seem normal enough.

Point is, I don't see much purpose in looking back.  Where am I from?  Do you actually want to know?  Do you really care?  This is just small talk in order to facilitate you in the process of dumping any and all assumptions you might have about whatever you've heard about wherever I'm from on me and my personality.  No thanks.

Maybe I should just refuse to answer.  Maybe I should take a leaf from the book of Yul Brynner, the famous cue-ball actor from The Ten Commandments, The King and I and The Magnificent Seven (NOT the big, mean "pride and power" guy from Cool Runnings).  He just let people guess his background, and some of the stories circulating were fun and fantastical.  Until Wikipedia ruined it all.



B. and I are now looking at grad schools for her and job opportunities for me all over the place.  We're particularly fond of  Washington State, but she's eying graduate programs offered as far as Australia.  I'm hoping to avoid getting sucked into California or New York, but if there is work I must go.

I understand that people ask about our origins to get a sense of our past experiences (i.e., B. is from Nevada and South Utah - she basks in the heat and is a total wimp in the cold), but unless you were there and met the people we did in each of our respective homes, you have no clue where we're really coming from.

It's people that make the place.




Where are you headed?  Where have you been?  Are you "from" somewhere?



S