My curiosity was piqued by a line in a previous post about never having felt “at home” anywhere in the world. And I began to wonder again about all those notions of home that haunt us, how much home is a part of our collective mythology, marketing’s imagery, societal constructs and each person’s own concept of a mini-nirvana – the hope for a place where we can be fully ourselves…
And I wonder what it is that makes someone feel like a pariah in their homeland? Whence that dissatisfaction, that itch to see how those elsewhere go about this business of existence? Is it mere curiosity or a deeper need of displacement?
And what is that attracts us to a given foreign land? Was it the literature, the landscapes, cadence of the language, the history… Was there something in particular we hoped to find? Or was it just running away? I’m fascinated by the fact that a place you’ve never known can resonate so strongly in your imagination, hold such a power of attraction, while many other lands hold no sway.
I’m not sure that I could articulate exactly what I hoped to find when I dropped everything to come live in France. I did soon discover the bland evidences that you never really leave anything behind, and that you’ve got to get by wherever you are. In spite of which, I’m glad to report that I have found something here that surpasses all my wildest hopes – and, yes, I suppose that tabula rasa has played a small part.
A very interesting post, for I find all of the reasons that I left, all of the reasons that I stay, to be my achilles heel. Something that I would rather ignore.
At times,coming here , reading the posts, thinking what I could write about, resembles nothing so much to me as picking open an old- very old- scab.
“Is it mere curiosity or a deeper need of displacement?”
For some of us, we simply had no choice.
In the late 1960s, I had to flee South Africa. I ended up wandering aimlessly around Europe, and working deadend jobs in England for two years. I managed to get back into SA with a new passport, and barely two years later was forced to leave again, and chose to go to Australia [all flights to Europe were booked solid for months, but I managed to get a small shared cabin above the engine room on the Oriana].
Been in the land Down Under since, and still find it a foreign place. And strangely, on the one trip I’ve managed back to SA in the interim, I find myself a stranger there too.
Perhaps I should try Canada ;-)
I would make a smallish wager that it starts with what you don’t have: that expatriates are not often the class presidents and junior achievers and other folk who seem to be running for mayor or climbing for CEO before they even get out of school. People with strong social ties and dreams of local success won’t want to risk even a year or two out of the net or ladder or whatever metaphor it is that has hold of them.
Without such roots (another tired metaphor), it’s easy to be wafted away, and not necessarily to any great place. The seed pod just floats on some current and eventually settles. And if _that_ is where the roots finally sprout, the expatriate is never going home, not without a lot of difficult gardening first.
I’m a Scot, resident in Germany these last 30+ years. I find that there are new words and meanings in the UK. My ‘english’ probably stayed the same as when I left. And all the cultural references e.g. to current TV shows, stars etc have changed. Only the old folks (like me) would
still know about the Goons or Tony Hancock or Steptoe and Son. I found that I could still turn a switch in my head, though, and do a passable Scots accent :)
Stuart
I suppose lots of people must feel disconnected all their lives, without ever leaving their hometowns. That alone would never have led me to leave, I could have easily spent a vaguely dissatisfied lifetime where I was born; I needed the added element of coincidence. I happened to travel, and when away, happened to stay away. It all happened by chance.
Interesting what you say about language Stuart, that’s happened to me too, both the ossification of my language and the pop culture ignorance. That must be universal.
Another interesting thing are treacherous pop-culture intersections; like finding pockets of Monty Python fans in the German-speaking world, yet being unable to recite skits or movies with them because although they also know them by heart, they only know the dubbed versions.
I fell in love with an American, and moved from my native Germany to the USA – a place I’d never really given much thought to before. I’d had the typical European snobby prejudice against Americans – we’re so cultured, they’re so shallow and stupid.
I was surprised to find how much I felt at home here. (Of course, being in California, in the Silicon Valley, helped.)
But it wasn’t a place I would ever have considered. Turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
I moved back to Germany two years ago, after 10 years in California. And then I turned right around, and am back “home” in California. Funny how that works.