"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.
I’m a tenth generation West Virginian (well before it was actually its own state) and moving to California still feels weird after ten years. I moved here to be where my daughter and her family are, and I’d make the same decision again. But…….When I tell friends, “I’m going home,” they know I don’t mean I’m going back to my apartment. They know I’m traveling to WV. One even dared to ask, “So when will Davis be home?” To which I semi-snarled, “Never!!” But the one that always makes me laugh is when someone I’m meeting actually asks me where I’m from. “Oh, I live in Davis.” The give me the skunk eye for a second and then rephrase, “No, where are you from REALLY?[Accent much?]” And like you, Anna, listening to Hazel Dickens’ “West Virginia My Home,” can bring down the torrents. I miss those green, rolling hills. Every. Single. Day.
Thanks for this, Anna! Really hits the spot. I've lived in northernmost Wisconsin in a tiny town on the south shore of Lake Superior for the past 8 years -- and JUST moved to Mill Valley, CA two weeks ago. Straddling two different galaxies -- adjusting to a new pace, lifestyle, and budget (lordy! $$$). It feels like a combination of study abroad and midlife crisis! (I'm 47, essentially single with a golden retriever) It's a wild time, but I'm grateful to have a newfound sense of opportunity, possibility, awe, and beginner's mind at this time of my life -- as much as I yearn for the comforts and convenience of "home." So interested to read other people's stories of geographical transitions, especially at midlife...
I'm late to this because it was posted as I was concluding a little annual pilgrimage myself and busy catching up on a week of lost work but...
I'm only recently recovered from having a major chip on my shoulder about the term "home". Ever since I was an undergraduate, I would dread making small talk with acquaintances around the holidays because the go-to question in those situations is always, "So are you going home for the holidays?"
I grew up in an insolated, chaotic, and occasionally violent household outside of a frontier mining town northeastern Washington State. I was the youngest of 8 children, so when I left for college, my parents moved ~5 hours away to Yakima, a small city in the southern part of the state. My sister lived there, but otherwise, it meant nothing to me. Even if they stayed in my childhood home, it was never somewhere that I wanted to return to, and my parents, aside from the occasional obligatory "I'd love to see you" around the holidays, didn't seem to want me there, either. None of my older siblings bothered to visit after they left home, either. We're just not a family that likes to be reminded of each other or where we're from.
For my first two years of school, I spent breaks seeing the side of my college town that few undergrads did, as community centers emptied out of short-timer coeds and repopulated with young parents and their children. Later on, when I had a serious partner, I spent holidays with her family. By then, most people in my life got the idea that I had a ~weird family situation~.
When I moved to the Baltimore and got a job, I dreaded the holiday small talk even more because it rubbed up against my insecurity of being a poor kid from a dysfunctional family in an elite environment (my entry-level role required a master's degree; most of my coworkers were PhDs). I got away with saying that transcontinental travel is tough during the holidays, but even acknowledging Washington as "home" felt wrong. There was no way I'd ever move back there, and when I'd visit, I only visited the west side to see my friends from college. My family never visited me, either, so I'd go years without seeing them. From my college town to graduate school in Toronto to my job in Baltimore, my home was always wherever I was, and I resented the idea that moving there as an adult implied that I was always on loan from some permanent "home".
Anyway, I picked up a life partner in Baltimore, and I adore my in-laws. Although we've moved yet again, we return to Baltimore at least twice a year, with one of the trips being for Thanksgiving. When the holidays roll around and people ask whether I'm going home for any of them, I feel no qualms about a simple, "Yes, we always go to Baltimore this time of year. I'm really looking forward to seeing my family."
I feel this deeply. I’m an American expat living in Tokyo; and our three year stay has turned in to eight years, and counting. We’ve set down roots and raised our kids in a place that was (and still is in many ways) foreign to my husband and I, and yet we love it. When we’re “home” in America for the summer, we miss the safety and comforts and foods of our Tokyo home. When we’re in our home in Tokyo, we miss our family and being able to understand all signs and conversations. The two lives are vastly different. And I can never say which one I love more, or where I feel the most “at home”.
I am a West Virginian now living in New Mexico. West Virginia is always home although I don’t know when or how I’d be able to move back. New Mexico is a cool place, too, and I love getting to know the state and people. Charles Wesley Godwin came to Albuquerque this week and I was so happy to sing Country Roads when he closed out the show. Like me, he always takes part of the state with him wherever he goes and is always looking for other West Virginians in the crowd.
I feel like I have left a piece of me everywhere I have lived. I am so grateful to have lived in different cities and states - and even a brief stay in another country. I have gotten to experience different geographies and cultures and climates, and know firsthand that that there is beauty and good people from coast to coast. I also yearn for the time in my life when all of my friends and immediate family lived in one town. I keep waiting to see if I stay long enough in another location, if it will feel like home in the way that my hometown did. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm still holding out hope. At the same time, my hometown has changed so much in the years that I've been gone, that not only are the people no longer there, but the character of the community isn't either. Nearly every time we get together, my brother and I find ourselves reminiscing about the version of our hometown that we remember from our childhood. I'm grateful to have a partner in sharing those memories and grieving its loss.
Home for me is northern California, where I have lived for over 30 years. But my original home was in rural Washington state, and that is the place that made me, or at least the beginnings of me. My sisters still live in that area, so when I visit them, I feel like my current self is crashing into the reasons that I left once I turned 18. To complicate matters, my brother, whom I have always stayed with when I visit Washington, moved to Scotland in 2020. He was integral to the feeling of home for me, and with him gone, it feels more confusing to be back in Washington. I love living in California, but home in Washington is a confusing and muddy concept for me.
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?
My somewhere else is not a place but a time. The time before when my husband was alive and the time after when he died.
home is a strange one. in my experience i just moved up to ontario from florida a few years ago and am still in the process of getting permenant residence status up here. where i lived in florida was a really small town compared to the mess that the greater toronto area is. it took me a year+ to adjust to the amount of people. i grew up partially...farming, now getting to a huge city in a different country.
the thing that makes it hard though is not having a "home" up here the costs of housing versus what we make is just....not going to work out. i and many others are in that same boat. especially many immigrants. my partner and her family are from taiwan actually, so they just went through this a decade back...and it was hard for them. I don't know what my future will hold, maybe i'll end up here, maybe somewhere else. we have three different countries we could try! i suppose i'm looking for that "home" and what it means to be from such a different place from most of who i interact with around me.
I used music (singing, in particular) to connect and reconnect to the many cultures and cities that I have living in or many socio-linguistic identities which I feel I was a part of. For example, this past month I hosted BEFORE DUSK, my first-ever concert! Friends and artists gathered to celebrate our shared paths and new beginnings with Jazz, Poetry, and Opera in 7 languages at the cozy, magical, and warm Clarion Performing Arts Center in the heart of San Francisco: https://www.honolulumailman.com/blog/curating-my-first-concert-5-essential-lessons-from-a-berklee-professor
Such an interesting question to me since I am literally between two places. I consider myself "from" San Diego, where I lived until I left high school and went to college. After that I moved to Portland, ME where I lived for 8 years, followed a dream of being a musician, met and married my spouse, and eventually finished college. I love Portland (and Maine in general) and consider it my other hometown - so many giant life events took places there. But then we ended up moving to Indiana where we went to graduate school and are now professors. We've lived in Indiana for 28 years, far longer than any of the other two places. And yet despite completing a Ph.D (and my spouse an MFA), getting our first and only (so far) teaching jobs, buying our first house, and adopting our two kids, I don't claim this place as home. It's always San Diego and Portland, ME. We're always talking about where we'll move when we retire - usually back to San Diego or Portland. This place has always felt temporary even if everything points to permanence.
Oh Anna, I so relate to this idea of feeling split between places. I'm originally from Milwaukee, WI, and moved to my dream city (Chicago) for graduate school. After an amazing 8-year stint there, my husband and I made the trek out to San Diego about a week after our wedding so my husband could pursue a work opportunity. That transition was SO hard. There was definitely excitement in starting out our lives as newlyweds in a new place (to me anyway) and there's a lot to love about California, but I know my heart wasn't fully ready to leave our life in Chicago. I feel like I was in mourning for about a year before I gave myself permission to start adjusting. I've never quite found my footing out here though-- there's something about returning to Chicago that floods me with that old familiar feeling of comfort and belonging. Returning, it's like no time has passed and all the time in the world has passed, which sends me into another grief spiral. I don't want to see things changing without me, but how can they not? Anyway, fast forward six years, and after some family tragedy and the realization we can't afford the California lifestyle anymore, we're now planning another out-of-state move, this time to Colorado. Chicago did come up during our discussions about what could be next and I had a lot of chats with friends who still live there and really challenged me on some of the yearning I still have to return. My life has entered a new phase-- my husband and I welcomed a daughter in 2022 and have another baby on the way this summer-- and through self-reflection, I've come to see that the way I feel about the city is very much tied to a time in my life (coming into adulthood/personhood, a relative carefreeness) that I've outgrown. This time around, I'm very ready to start life anew somewhere new. I still hold that small piece of anxiety that wonders if I'll feel settled after this move and finally find some community of my own (probably the thought of all moms with new children honestly), but I'm prepared to embrace what's next. I'm hopeful it's going to be good and the start of me building a home for my girls.
Ooof I feel this so hard. I was born and raised in WV, just outside Charleston, but left as soon as I was able. It wasn’t easy being a queer punk/goth kid in small town WV in the 90s. I moved around…to Denver then to Richmond, VA for several years, then landed in Chicago for a decade. I thought I needed a change, and maybe I did for a time, so my partner and I moved to LA in 2017. I loved it here at first but that love has faded. Even when I was enamored with LA, though, it never actually felt like home. I kept thinking that would come but it never has. But I’ve developed a fierce homesickness for Chicago. It’s the only other place that has ever felt like home outside of where I was raised. So when I reference “home” these days, I always have to specify whether I mean Chicago or WV. I even have a tattoo of flora from both places with my respective previous area codes to signify the two places where I’ve felt rooted.
Squaring that with the fact that I will probably never live in either of those places again is tough. I frequently feel a bit unmoored and haven’t really figured out a way to resolve that feeling. I suppose that I should feel lucky, though, that I was able to feel held and seen for so much of my life in two very different places, without which I could not be the person I am now. In this place that isn’t quite home.
I grew up in the burbs of Chicago, went to college at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and moved to San Francisco after a year and a half at the Columbia newspaper. I've been in the Bay for nearly 18 years now, and I still struggle with the question "where are you from?"
I know nothing about the burbs of Chicago anymore, I really feel like I became the "adult" me in Columbia, and I've built a life here. Still, when I say I'm from SF, my SF friend tells me that I am not.
My wife and I are now raising an SF kid, and it boggles our transplant minds that he will grow up with his day to day be redwoods, kayaking, and the Golden Gate Bridge as a regular ol' road.
"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.
I’m a tenth generation West Virginian (well before it was actually its own state) and moving to California still feels weird after ten years. I moved here to be where my daughter and her family are, and I’d make the same decision again. But…….When I tell friends, “I’m going home,” they know I don’t mean I’m going back to my apartment. They know I’m traveling to WV. One even dared to ask, “So when will Davis be home?” To which I semi-snarled, “Never!!” But the one that always makes me laugh is when someone I’m meeting actually asks me where I’m from. “Oh, I live in Davis.” The give me the skunk eye for a second and then rephrase, “No, where are you from REALLY?[Accent much?]” And like you, Anna, listening to Hazel Dickens’ “West Virginia My Home,” can bring down the torrents. I miss those green, rolling hills. Every. Single. Day.
Thanks for this, Anna! Really hits the spot. I've lived in northernmost Wisconsin in a tiny town on the south shore of Lake Superior for the past 8 years -- and JUST moved to Mill Valley, CA two weeks ago. Straddling two different galaxies -- adjusting to a new pace, lifestyle, and budget (lordy! $$$). It feels like a combination of study abroad and midlife crisis! (I'm 47, essentially single with a golden retriever) It's a wild time, but I'm grateful to have a newfound sense of opportunity, possibility, awe, and beginner's mind at this time of my life -- as much as I yearn for the comforts and convenience of "home." So interested to read other people's stories of geographical transitions, especially at midlife...
I'm late to this because it was posted as I was concluding a little annual pilgrimage myself and busy catching up on a week of lost work but...
I'm only recently recovered from having a major chip on my shoulder about the term "home". Ever since I was an undergraduate, I would dread making small talk with acquaintances around the holidays because the go-to question in those situations is always, "So are you going home for the holidays?"
I grew up in an insolated, chaotic, and occasionally violent household outside of a frontier mining town northeastern Washington State. I was the youngest of 8 children, so when I left for college, my parents moved ~5 hours away to Yakima, a small city in the southern part of the state. My sister lived there, but otherwise, it meant nothing to me. Even if they stayed in my childhood home, it was never somewhere that I wanted to return to, and my parents, aside from the occasional obligatory "I'd love to see you" around the holidays, didn't seem to want me there, either. None of my older siblings bothered to visit after they left home, either. We're just not a family that likes to be reminded of each other or where we're from.
For my first two years of school, I spent breaks seeing the side of my college town that few undergrads did, as community centers emptied out of short-timer coeds and repopulated with young parents and their children. Later on, when I had a serious partner, I spent holidays with her family. By then, most people in my life got the idea that I had a ~weird family situation~.
When I moved to the Baltimore and got a job, I dreaded the holiday small talk even more because it rubbed up against my insecurity of being a poor kid from a dysfunctional family in an elite environment (my entry-level role required a master's degree; most of my coworkers were PhDs). I got away with saying that transcontinental travel is tough during the holidays, but even acknowledging Washington as "home" felt wrong. There was no way I'd ever move back there, and when I'd visit, I only visited the west side to see my friends from college. My family never visited me, either, so I'd go years without seeing them. From my college town to graduate school in Toronto to my job in Baltimore, my home was always wherever I was, and I resented the idea that moving there as an adult implied that I was always on loan from some permanent "home".
Anyway, I picked up a life partner in Baltimore, and I adore my in-laws. Although we've moved yet again, we return to Baltimore at least twice a year, with one of the trips being for Thanksgiving. When the holidays roll around and people ask whether I'm going home for any of them, I feel no qualms about a simple, "Yes, we always go to Baltimore this time of year. I'm really looking forward to seeing my family."
Hi Anna,
I feel this deeply. I’m an American expat living in Tokyo; and our three year stay has turned in to eight years, and counting. We’ve set down roots and raised our kids in a place that was (and still is in many ways) foreign to my husband and I, and yet we love it. When we’re “home” in America for the summer, we miss the safety and comforts and foods of our Tokyo home. When we’re in our home in Tokyo, we miss our family and being able to understand all signs and conversations. The two lives are vastly different. And I can never say which one I love more, or where I feel the most “at home”.
I am a West Virginian now living in New Mexico. West Virginia is always home although I don’t know when or how I’d be able to move back. New Mexico is a cool place, too, and I love getting to know the state and people. Charles Wesley Godwin came to Albuquerque this week and I was so happy to sing Country Roads when he closed out the show. Like me, he always takes part of the state with him wherever he goes and is always looking for other West Virginians in the crowd.
I feel like I have left a piece of me everywhere I have lived. I am so grateful to have lived in different cities and states - and even a brief stay in another country. I have gotten to experience different geographies and cultures and climates, and know firsthand that that there is beauty and good people from coast to coast. I also yearn for the time in my life when all of my friends and immediate family lived in one town. I keep waiting to see if I stay long enough in another location, if it will feel like home in the way that my hometown did. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm still holding out hope. At the same time, my hometown has changed so much in the years that I've been gone, that not only are the people no longer there, but the character of the community isn't either. Nearly every time we get together, my brother and I find ourselves reminiscing about the version of our hometown that we remember from our childhood. I'm grateful to have a partner in sharing those memories and grieving its loss.
Home for me is northern California, where I have lived for over 30 years. But my original home was in rural Washington state, and that is the place that made me, or at least the beginnings of me. My sisters still live in that area, so when I visit them, I feel like my current self is crashing into the reasons that I left once I turned 18. To complicate matters, my brother, whom I have always stayed with when I visit Washington, moved to Scotland in 2020. He was integral to the feeling of home for me, and with him gone, it feels more confusing to be back in Washington. I love living in California, but home in Washington is a confusing and muddy concept for me.
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?
My somewhere else is not a place but a time. The time before when my husband was alive and the time after when he died.
home is a strange one. in my experience i just moved up to ontario from florida a few years ago and am still in the process of getting permenant residence status up here. where i lived in florida was a really small town compared to the mess that the greater toronto area is. it took me a year+ to adjust to the amount of people. i grew up partially...farming, now getting to a huge city in a different country.
the thing that makes it hard though is not having a "home" up here the costs of housing versus what we make is just....not going to work out. i and many others are in that same boat. especially many immigrants. my partner and her family are from taiwan actually, so they just went through this a decade back...and it was hard for them. I don't know what my future will hold, maybe i'll end up here, maybe somewhere else. we have three different countries we could try! i suppose i'm looking for that "home" and what it means to be from such a different place from most of who i interact with around me.
I used music (singing, in particular) to connect and reconnect to the many cultures and cities that I have living in or many socio-linguistic identities which I feel I was a part of. For example, this past month I hosted BEFORE DUSK, my first-ever concert! Friends and artists gathered to celebrate our shared paths and new beginnings with Jazz, Poetry, and Opera in 7 languages at the cozy, magical, and warm Clarion Performing Arts Center in the heart of San Francisco: https://www.honolulumailman.com/blog/curating-my-first-concert-5-essential-lessons-from-a-berklee-professor
Such an interesting question to me since I am literally between two places. I consider myself "from" San Diego, where I lived until I left high school and went to college. After that I moved to Portland, ME where I lived for 8 years, followed a dream of being a musician, met and married my spouse, and eventually finished college. I love Portland (and Maine in general) and consider it my other hometown - so many giant life events took places there. But then we ended up moving to Indiana where we went to graduate school and are now professors. We've lived in Indiana for 28 years, far longer than any of the other two places. And yet despite completing a Ph.D (and my spouse an MFA), getting our first and only (so far) teaching jobs, buying our first house, and adopting our two kids, I don't claim this place as home. It's always San Diego and Portland, ME. We're always talking about where we'll move when we retire - usually back to San Diego or Portland. This place has always felt temporary even if everything points to permanence.
Oh Anna, I so relate to this idea of feeling split between places. I'm originally from Milwaukee, WI, and moved to my dream city (Chicago) for graduate school. After an amazing 8-year stint there, my husband and I made the trek out to San Diego about a week after our wedding so my husband could pursue a work opportunity. That transition was SO hard. There was definitely excitement in starting out our lives as newlyweds in a new place (to me anyway) and there's a lot to love about California, but I know my heart wasn't fully ready to leave our life in Chicago. I feel like I was in mourning for about a year before I gave myself permission to start adjusting. I've never quite found my footing out here though-- there's something about returning to Chicago that floods me with that old familiar feeling of comfort and belonging. Returning, it's like no time has passed and all the time in the world has passed, which sends me into another grief spiral. I don't want to see things changing without me, but how can they not? Anyway, fast forward six years, and after some family tragedy and the realization we can't afford the California lifestyle anymore, we're now planning another out-of-state move, this time to Colorado. Chicago did come up during our discussions about what could be next and I had a lot of chats with friends who still live there and really challenged me on some of the yearning I still have to return. My life has entered a new phase-- my husband and I welcomed a daughter in 2022 and have another baby on the way this summer-- and through self-reflection, I've come to see that the way I feel about the city is very much tied to a time in my life (coming into adulthood/personhood, a relative carefreeness) that I've outgrown. This time around, I'm very ready to start life anew somewhere new. I still hold that small piece of anxiety that wonders if I'll feel settled after this move and finally find some community of my own (probably the thought of all moms with new children honestly), but I'm prepared to embrace what's next. I'm hopeful it's going to be good and the start of me building a home for my girls.
Ooof I feel this so hard. I was born and raised in WV, just outside Charleston, but left as soon as I was able. It wasn’t easy being a queer punk/goth kid in small town WV in the 90s. I moved around…to Denver then to Richmond, VA for several years, then landed in Chicago for a decade. I thought I needed a change, and maybe I did for a time, so my partner and I moved to LA in 2017. I loved it here at first but that love has faded. Even when I was enamored with LA, though, it never actually felt like home. I kept thinking that would come but it never has. But I’ve developed a fierce homesickness for Chicago. It’s the only other place that has ever felt like home outside of where I was raised. So when I reference “home” these days, I always have to specify whether I mean Chicago or WV. I even have a tattoo of flora from both places with my respective previous area codes to signify the two places where I’ve felt rooted.
Squaring that with the fact that I will probably never live in either of those places again is tough. I frequently feel a bit unmoored and haven’t really figured out a way to resolve that feeling. I suppose that I should feel lucky, though, that I was able to feel held and seen for so much of my life in two very different places, without which I could not be the person I am now. In this place that isn’t quite home.
I grew up in the burbs of Chicago, went to college at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and moved to San Francisco after a year and a half at the Columbia newspaper. I've been in the Bay for nearly 18 years now, and I still struggle with the question "where are you from?"
I know nothing about the burbs of Chicago anymore, I really feel like I became the "adult" me in Columbia, and I've built a life here. Still, when I say I'm from SF, my SF friend tells me that I am not.
My wife and I are now raising an SF kid, and it boggles our transplant minds that he will grow up with his day to day be redwoods, kayaking, and the Golden Gate Bridge as a regular ol' road.