Endings
Last Thursday was a long day. Flying from Europe is easier than the other way round, but only to the extent that instead of feeling like being up in the middle of the night you feel like your day is never going to end. This wouldn't be so bad if that day happened to be a fun one, but flying with two small kids for 8 hours and then riding in the car with them for a few more does not make for a whole lot of relaxing entertainment. While Ivan was trying to find yet another way to climb his way out of my arms into the front seat, pulling my shirt and hair I caught a glimpse of the other passengers... sitting still, yawning, being oh, so bored! They had read all their magazines, had picked around their food and left half of their coffee in their cup, which was also sitting quietly on their tray not in any danger to be spilled into their lap any minute. I tried to remember the times when this scenario was what I dreaded when thinking of a long flight. Fool I was. What was that like? I cannot remember for the life of me. Eight hours of sitting still, fed up with reading and conversation! I allowed myself a few moments of self-pity. When did all of the mundane situations in my life become hard work?
Well, we all made it home fine. The kids were exhausted in every way. We had two weeks packed with every family activity we could fit in. It was one highlight after another especially for Veronika and even though I'm sure she enjoyed every minute of it, there is such a thing as too much even with positive emotions. It was time to come home. Nevertheless saying goodbye was tough, because nothing we did was more than normal things you would do with your family: go shopping, go for a walk, celebrate a birthday, play with your cousins. Why could we not have this at home?
When I was putting Veronika down that night she said: "I want to go back on the airplane. I want to go back to Baka and Deda. I don't wanna go to preschool." Putting up my parental I-know-what-I'm-talking-about-face I said: "It's nice at Baka and Deda's, huh? It's sad we had to leave. But we will go again. Until then we have a lot of things to do though. We will have Easter and color the eggs and then it's going to get warmer and we'll go to the park and swimming and we have to play with Drew and Emma and Ellie and then we will celebrate your birthday..." Her expression was still the same, a little worried, serious. Then she said "I wanna go. I wanna go to preschool. I don't want to go on the airplane again." And just like that she summed up all those terribly conflicting feelings. I almost wanted to say: You're right. That's just how it is. One minute you want to go back, the other you want to be home. You feel both things at the same time. It's exhausting and there's no real fix. I'm saving that for when she's older, because I know she will be revisiting those feelings on a regular basis.
While we were in Austria, we got to take Veronika to a live performance of an Austrian children's song writer whose CDs she's been listening to for years. She started out excited and intrigued, trying to keep up with singing and moving along, but with time she got more and more quiet and by the end of the concert declared she wanted to go home... to Danbury. That was the only time during the trip where she specified where she wanted to go home to and my heart was breaking a little bit because I could so clearly see what it was all about. Welcome to the world of the split identity, baby, of you heart always partially somewhere else, of constant confusion of belonging. There were all these little kids just like her, singing songs she knew, but she also clearly felt they were part of a different world. They didn't go to preschool with Ms Kelly, they didn't speak English and they had a whole "thing" she was not directly part of.
Like a good mother I immediately felt guilty. It is my fault for putting her in this situation! That train of thought has a very unsatisfactory ending though... should I not have married her father? I wish there was a way for me to handle this for her, emotionally, but there isn't. I was surprised how hard it was to sit on my hands, because I know this is where her life starts and she has to grow through it herself. I will tell her eventually that it's hard to be the odd one out either way you go, to be permanently split because you have two perfect identities in two countries I will also tell her how great it is and totally worth it, but all of this will have to wait for some time and it will involve a lot of me watching her and fretting and fretting.
I know for myself I don't regret anything. I don't feel like I was disadvantaged at all, but I know some feelings will always come and there will always be goodbyes and as much as one makes peace with it, they will hurt. We'll just have to take it a step at a time, her living her life and me watching (while slowly spiraling into insanity).
Alle Jahre Wieder
...I get the Christmas homesickness. I won't bore you with the details, the magical details of Christmas in Central Europe. I did that a few years ago and besides Rick Steves did a much better job.
Anyway, I added a photo site to my links in order to aide my imagination on the bad days: Zoom Vienna. Check it out, the photos are great.
Posted at 08:46 PM on December 15, 2005More immigration angst
You might have noticed in the lower left corner is a new link to amazon.com. This is to give you easy access to the books I occasionally review on this site, which also means a tiny percentage for the souzek household. Yep, I'm totally making money off of you. There are no limits to my greed!
I wanted to review Hip Mama but I didn't like it (actually I loved the introduction, but that's it) and realized I don't really want to waste any time giving negative reviews. So I skipped that and am going straight to a book I got for my birthday and really loved. "Hidden Immigrants" are stories about sons and daughters of diplomats, missionaries and other ex-pats, who spent many years of their childhood in one or several different countries and describe in an interview format how it affected their lives. I was surprised how much I could relate although my situation was quite different (I wasn't really an ex-pat, because my family wasn't planning to return to their country.) Unfortunately there is no book about Croatian children, who grew up in Austria and then got married to goodlooking American men but in many ways the statements and experiences of these people are very close to mine.
The author writes about ex-pat children growing up to be in some ways "detached" from their communities because they have learned to stay on the surface: "... they are not joiners and are often most happy in their own company, they vote but are otherwise political observers, they are not blindly patriotic and in fact the notion of patriotism in any form bothers some a great deal. [...] They don't like being pinned down on that "where are you from?" question."
It was a strange feeling of relief to read that. I just didn't know that this is really that common. It feels good to get acknowledgement from a completely unbiased source. Oh that "where are you from" question! I dread it although it can't be avoided and I know I need to be asked that, because it is so much part of me, but still. With every country and every culture you build a new identity. It is a necessity to do that not only to survive in the culture but also to be able to relate to the people you are living with. Now as you move, you leave that life and those people behind and that identity stays with you, but in a sort of unused state. It usually describes an exact time of your life, of your past and you take it along but the new people you meet, your new surrounding has no knowledge of it whatsoever... so in a way you yourself are the only one, who has been around for all the changes for all new created identities. Only you are your only witness to how you were this in this place and then became that in the other and so forth. I think that's one of the big reasons why she says "they are often most happy in their own company". It is a lot of work trying to convey who you are when you have moved so much. There are so many pieces of the puzzle and although they are essential they can not be communicated. So what you do is stick to the identity that works in your current environment and the rest you might tell someone who really is ready to be a lasting friend. That gets tiring sometimes and so it's essential to stay away from people occasionally so you can be your full self without having to do much explaining.
One of the interviewed people said something that really really hit home for me:
"One of the things I've learned about myself from Global Nomads is, while the director kept trying to get me to join, I asked myself, why is it that I don't want to join? I finally realized I don't want to join anything! I don't want to join... I'm just somebody who likes to have individual relationships, but I don't like being part of groups."
Actually I thought I must have written that. All this time I thought I was just a weirdo and then I get my suspicion confirmed, that really my immigrant experience does have a lot to do with how I feel about "joining". Of course an attitude like that could be easily a character trait but in this context I think it isn't. I have never ever found a group I really wanted to be part of. Well, I did initially because it seemed such a great idea, but then very shortly afterwards I found them suffocating and unrealistic and boring and a little bit dishonest. I cannot bear the group identity. I cannot stand the pressure to conform, even if it's conforming to some really nice ideas. The idea of the group is just wrong in my eyes, even though I'm sure it's a blessing for some. In order to fit into a group there is a price to pay, you can't be one with everyone else if you aren't ready to give up a few of your idosyncracies or if you are not ready to be loyal beyond some of your personal convictions. And I can't go there. I just can't. My whole life I had to fight to nurture and maintain my own identity in changing environments. You can't ask me to give this up so that you can have your perfect homogenized group. Sorry. I'm asocial. Whatever.
One woman said: "I really believe that if you travel, your parents are your identity. They are the cohesiveness to your future and how you're going to develop. [...] The other roots - being in the same place, have the same friends all the time - just aren't there. So you have to have the same parents all the time."
That part really rang true for me too, although I would probably extend that to siblings and husbands and not just parents. I do think that a certain sense of culture is transferred more onto the close family than the surroundings and since your parents can't make the connection from their own way of life to the outside world, a lot of the characteristics of the outside world remain rather insignificant. Not insignificant as in not important but as in not permanent and therefore secondary. I think that is another reason why I have trouble with patriotism. I don't see the importance of things that to me are and have been exchangable. A particular language, lifestyle, culture - they are important yes, but they are not "values" to me on par with things like solidarity or dignity or compassion. And that brings me back to that identity issue again. If you have experienced yourself in different languages, lifestyles and cultures and you have not lost yourself on the way, then for you those take second place to other things and you simply cannot be patriotic, because it feels like every time you are you betray another part of yourself.
I highly recommend the book to those who have gone through similar things in their life or those who want to know what it's like. It's more a collection of thoughts and experiences than an analysis but because of that it gives a really good insight into what children go through as ex-pats and how it affects them later in life. I will probably reread parts of it occasionally, if for no other reason than to remind myself I'm not the only weird one.
Posted at 01:16 PM on December 10, 2004 | Comments (3)Homesickness Part I
This is the thing with homesickness. It hits you at the most unexpected times, triggered by the weirdest things.
As I was researching some St. Nicholas sites, I come acrross this one and then in particular about St. Nikolaus on the Danube and there at the end of the site, way below is a picture of an old stamp. And then there it is. I don't know what triggered it, maybe the font... Flashbacks to being 9 and in Volksschule. The sounds of the train. Reading boring schoolbooks on a late winter afternoon. Going to piano lessons afterwards.
All from a random stamp. Don't ask, it really doesn't make sense.
Posted at 08:29 AM on December 03, 2004 | Comments (4)Immigration Issues: 5. The prideful p-word
I think we have already established from previous entries in this series that when you're an immigrant, you just can't win. It's a constant back-and-forth and there is no escaping the judgement from either side of the identity spectrum, but when it comes down to really cracking down on an immigrant's sore spot, there's nothing like taking a good swing at it with something called patriotism.
In its original meaning and purpose patriotism means the love of one's country - a definitely positive attitude and action, a virtue that inspired great heroism. That's what I'm told anyway. And it's not that I'm against loving one's country or loving "my" country for that matter, that's not the issue. The issue for the immigrant is "what is my country?" and since that one will fade to the background to give priority to love, commitment and loyalty to friends and family from the different countries the immigrant has lived in, patriotism in its traditional sense is impossible... and irrelevant.
That does not sit well with most people though. Saying, you do not feel patriotic for any particular country is heresy. Alright, almost. It's insulting and ungrateful. To who? Well, to whoever feels you owe loyalty to a homeland (obviously their own). It is possible that patriotism really does exist in its pure form. It is possible that it inspires good things. To be honest though, I have not seen that happen... yet.
"You should be patriotic because this is a great country. It's better than most other countries."
- I know patriotism doesn't imply pride in the sense of feeling superior, just pride in the sense of gratitude and achievement. Unfortunately every time someone mentions patriotism it is to support their views on the superiority of their country. I understand that people will have a special place in their heart for the place they grew up in and for what's "theirs". We are all very fond of our own families, much more than of any other, but what it comes down to is putting other people down in order to see oneself emerge above. Patriotism is always used to boast and brag and to mask contempt.
"You should be patriotic because you owe your country what you are today."
- No. I owe many people what I am today. I owe many countries what I am today. I love the people more though. Today's borders are a consequence of deliberate decisions and bloody wars. Even though countries developed a common identity, my personal identity might not be woven of those same ingredients.
"We are all patriotic. We decide what that means and you are not it."
- Oh the times I have been given the feeling that without "being patriotic" (whatever that meant at the particular moment) I will be denied friendship and respect! What it really came down to is, that there was a group of people with a huge nothing where self-esteem and identity was supposed to be and patriotism filled it. It was an unspoken agreement that they will protect each other by covering up for the void, and patriotism was the name of the pact.
"You don't want to be pariotic because you shun commitment. You are a liberal wuss."
- I don't even want to go there.
Maybe my view is one-sided. I just grew weary of trying to argue nationalistic tendencies - just because they were relabeled "patriotic". I have seen too many places, too many people and too many common grounds to be able to draw lines and say: my country - your country. If as an immigrant you want to be true to your heritage, you will have to lie to yourself first in order to fit someone's concept of loyalty and identity. It's wonderful to be born and grow up in the same place, admittedly the immigrant doesn't know what that feels like. Does that make him lesser of a person? Does that imply a handicap, a fault, a mistake? I don't believe that and I therefore I don't believe that a "native's" true self is a direct result of having had the same passport all his life.
Patriotic pride thrives on two premises:
1. "All I've really seen in my life is my country, so it must be the best!"
2. "I've seen lots of other places, but I'm nothing if I can't feel superior to someone else."
Granted, that's not what "love of country" implies, but that's what's out there. Take it from an immigrant.