...but where are you really from?
and how to be together in New York City on June 11!
DEATH, SEX & MONEY! | TRIBECA FESTIVAL! | WITH KARA SWISHER!
On Tuesday, June 11, in New York City, I’m hosting a live show at Tribeca where I’ll talk interviewing with Kara Swisher, one of the legends of the interviewing game. Get tickets here before they’re gone.
In your Death, Sex & Money podcast feed this week, we examine Why You’re Not Having Sex. Listen here.
We are wrapping up the school year in my household right now, and for us, it can feel like an extra crowded time of year, because this is also when my family migrates to Wyoming for the summer for my husband Arthur’s work.
As a reminder, Arthur is a wildlife ecologist who studies migratory wildlife, among other things. Just as the elk, antelope and deer he studies move up in elevation to fatten up on the fresh green grass under summer snow melt, he migrates to the mountains to get fed on time in the landscape he studies, with the wildlife and the people who make their lives there. The rest of our family — me, the kids, the dogs, AND the rats — get to come along too and be nourished by the open horizons, creeks and rivers, and precious time with family and friends.
But this transition can stir up my perennial existential questions of where I fit. It’s strange to feel deep affection, and quite rooted, in places that are so different. I mean, moving between Berkeley and northwest Wyoming in 2024 is WILD! Particularly on top of all my feelings about having left West Virginia years ago. Like so many before me, I left there for opportunity and pine for home, as Hazel Dickens and John Denver sing about. Their West Virginia songs always make me feel wistful, and might even prompt a little cry. And then…I’ll switch over to thinking about my trip to New York City for the Tribeca Festival and all the ways I feel myself in that place. WHO AM I???
This is what I’ll be chewing on while I’m on the open road this weekend. For now, I have a lot of packing and playlist-making ahead of me, so I’m going to keep the note short this week. But I am curious to know if you relate at all.
Tell me in the comments: Do you have a version of split “From Somewhere”-ness in your life? Do you feel like you’re straddling a few different places where you kind of fit and kind of don’t? Either because you moved away from a place that made you, or the place you stayed has changed around you? When you’re not physically in your place that feels like home, how do you connect to it?
I do really love hearing from you. I send out these emails with the click of a button, and hearing back helps me have a sense of all the places they land!
Until next week,
Anna
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Listen to our latest Death, Sex & Money episodes
5/28 Why You’re Not Having Sex
5/21 The Night Magic Mushrooms and Jam Bands Helped Me Walk Again
5/15 My Eating Disorder Turned Into an Obsession with Money
5/7 Filling the Health Care Gap (and Filling Lips!) in Appalachia
4/30 You’re at a Crossroads. We’re Here to Help.
"Do you have a version of split “From Somewhere”-ness in your life? Do you feel like you’re straddling a few different places where you kind of fit and kind of don’t? "......
Oh yes. I'm born and raised in Nebraska and currently live outside of Vancouver, British Columbia (10 years). My husband is from the area and I am always up for international adventures (the geography, and the recreation around that...AND healthcare were my main reasons to move). My kids were newly 4 and almost 6 years old when we moved them away from grandparents and the place they were born, and it's funny.... we're all (now) dual citizens, but I just asked a similar question to them now (15, 17), and they both said, "when we're in Nebraska, we feel like Canadians. When we'er here, we feel like Americans". Me, too. Exactly. We fit in both places, but we also...don't 100%?
So many feelings about this! I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, in a family that voted Democrat and did not go to church (highly unusual, especially in the 1970s and 80s), so even from childhood I felt a disconnect from the place I called home. After college I moved to Chicago, where I lived for 24 years. The first three years were brutal, having to get used to actual winter for the first time, and after that I grew used to the big city. But after getting married and having three kids there, life got harder and even more expensive, so we moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan about six years ago. It's strange to say, but Kalamazoo feels more like home than anywhere at this point. Going "home" to visit family in Texas makes me nostalgic for old times, but it's such a different place now than it was 30 years ago. When asked where I'm from, I still say, "Texas!" But the older I get, the more I feel that "home" can be a state of mind as well as a physical place.