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Strap yourself to the tree with roots
I came to a realisation today, cycling to town in the bright autumn of penetrating sunshine and dazzling cold: this is not my place.
This time three years ago, I was so happy to finally be out of the US that I fell utterly in love with Scotland, and was sure that I would want to live here forever. For most of the last three years I hadn't even considered that I might return. Now I'm so homesick I can't stop thinking about North America.
The tricky thing is that I don't miss the US in the slightest. It's the land itself that tugs me like a magnet. The flora and fauna. I miss forests, and individual trees. I miss whole species: cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, hummingbirds; sweetgums, red maples, tulip poplars, even fucking loblolly pines. Someone on our road has planted goldenrod in their front garden, and when I first noticed it, I actually stopped dead in my tracks just to touch it. Even the air here seems foreign to me, sometimes, for all that I'm actually pretty acclimatised. I can feel it deep in my core; I miss my homeland with my whole body.
Then, of course, there's my family. I guess I was lucky, in this century, to have grown up so close (geographically and emotionally) to such a large extended family. But that kind of strength of 'home' really gets into your bones. I think the idea of it sustained me, somewhat, when I first left. But these days, I just want to get back to my family, my forests, my roots. Except that I really, really don't want to return to the United States.
This time three years ago, I was so happy to finally be out of the US that I fell utterly in love with Scotland, and was sure that I would want to live here forever. For most of the last three years I hadn't even considered that I might return. Now I'm so homesick I can't stop thinking about North America.
The tricky thing is that I don't miss the US in the slightest. It's the land itself that tugs me like a magnet. The flora and fauna. I miss forests, and individual trees. I miss whole species: cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, hummingbirds; sweetgums, red maples, tulip poplars, even fucking loblolly pines. Someone on our road has planted goldenrod in their front garden, and when I first noticed it, I actually stopped dead in my tracks just to touch it. Even the air here seems foreign to me, sometimes, for all that I'm actually pretty acclimatised. I can feel it deep in my core; I miss my homeland with my whole body.
Then, of course, there's my family. I guess I was lucky, in this century, to have grown up so close (geographically and emotionally) to such a large extended family. But that kind of strength of 'home' really gets into your bones. I think the idea of it sustained me, somewhat, when I first left. But these days, I just want to get back to my family, my forests, my roots. Except that I really, really don't want to return to the United States.
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