Rootless

Whenever it was I last posted (months and months and months ago), I wrote a bit about road trips that morphed into a bit about self with just a dash of ambiguity and hearty heap of USA. After all USA road trips are the best road trips, in my humble opinion (no that was not meant to sound like Uriah Heap but if it came across that way, I am both sorry and a little thrilled).

I linked to a blogger who wrote a little about what she saw as dissonance here in the USA. Basically she talked about rootlessness. This got me thinking.

I've always considered myself rootless. Whenever people ask where I'm from, I go blank. Do they mean most recently? Do they mean where I was born? attended elementary school? middle school? graduated high school? College? Grad School? Currently reside? Because each of those questions has a different answer.

The honest truth is: I don't know where I'm from.

For a long long time, I sort of held a huge chip on my shoulder about living in America. Ask anyone who knew me from third to twelfth grade. It was a problem. I was a problem. I struggled with my identity and felt that anything "American" would drive out the "British." Turns out living over twenty years in a country will actually "drive out" or at the very least alter a person's sense of identity. I am much more American than I am British, with a few varying exceptions, a trunk is a boot always and forever. And yet, I am British, through and through. It's a very strange place to be. And whenever I go back to that glorious island, my poor brain just can't handle the accents and I honestly cannot think of how to speak. Literally. It takes very conscious effort not to speak with an accent, either too American or too British. Though I'm not copying the accent of others, it's always the accent I would have had, but with an American twist. It's strange and usually takes me at least a week to acclimate.

I had hoped to settle down somewhere so that my children would have roots to be from somewhere but already in their short little lives, I've given up hope of "settling down" as was purported to occur in the good old golden days of who knows when or where. I'm convinced that the "good ol' days" are a myth. A legend. A folk tale. I'm almost convinced that every day, every ordinary day, is a "good ol' day" to someone somewhere at some time. None of my children were born in the same city. Only two were even born in the same state. Chances of us staying anywhere for at least the foreseeable future are slim. We're already "prepping" our minds for a probable move next summer.

But, as my husband pointed out, Biblically there were some who belonged to city-states, and others who belonged to nomadic tribes. The tribes stuck together but moved from place to place. That's us. Gypsy living. We are minimalists not because it is the new popular trend but because we know that someday not far from now we'll have to pack up all that stuff and haul it somewhere else. Yet, I desperately want to belong to some place.

I want there to be a place that is so soaked with memories that it becomes a "thin place." A place that holds spiritual meaning, that is heavy with love and connection. I thought it was Glasgow. And you can read my feelings on my most recent trip to that amazing city HERE. But I'm afraid it wasn't or hasn't yet become a "thin place", though I still have a hankering to visit again this time with my husband and children. Perhaps going back again and again and again reinforces the "thinness" or maybe "thinness" is based solely on our perception. I do feel pulled to certain places, then again, I feel pulled all over the globe if I'm being completely honest. I would like nothing better than to road trip all over the world (obviously with a few flights thrown in for convenience) and maybe someday that dream can become a reality. For now though, I'm living the rootless dream in Southern USA!

Post-edit: My apologies, we've moved. Again. Across the country. Again. And are back in Utah, though an entirely different part of the state. However, these thoughts, for the most part, still ring true. And to sinch the deal I read this wonderful article/post by Candace Rose Rardon that perfectly summarizes my thoughts on home and to some extent my rootlessness:

"Home is the aggregate of our journeys, a collection of people and places, memories and experiences, each home building on the last."