There’s a bonus to belonging to two homes. Whenever I’m flying to the States or back to Switzerland—as I’m doing today—I’m flying home, to where my family is. Not home as place rooted by the foundations of buildings, culture, memories. Rather, home as where I have a sense of belonging or purpose. There’s a disadvantage of belonging to two homes. Whenever I’m flying to the States or back to Switzerland, I’m leaving home. I can no longer be the person without two homes. I could no longer settle in the States without being influenced by my thirty-plus years of living in Switzerland and France. The reverse is the same, although there will come a day when I’ll be less able to visit the States—maybe there will come a day when travel is so restricted, I’d won’t qualify for the privilege.
While visiting Eastern Oregon to be with my mom and brother, he took me out to see the Zumwalt Prairie and the Buckhorn Overlook, an all-day trip that included miles and miles of gravel roads and dust. The land out there feels like “home,” although I’ve never lived anyplace like it. I’m the kid from many suburbias, from the South to the Eastern Seaboard, the North, the West, and the Pacific Northwest. During my high school years, we lived in the country. My sister and I rode horses, got involved in 4H. During those years, I dreamed of owning a large swathe of isolated land, precisely like the places we were driving past on our way to the Zumwalt Prairie. I might have made a life of it. I’m pretty adaptable. So, as we drive by a clapboard-sided farmhouse shaded by a huge oak or maple or linden or whatever, it’s huge barn, and fenced and cross-fenced acreage, I do think, “I could live here.” When I’m back in La Grande, the small town where my brother, sister-in-law, and mother live, I think the same.
Being in the States is a relief from being an outsider (I like to say that I look Swiss, but when I open my mouth, my accented Swiss German betrays my image.)
La Grande may be isolated, but everything a person needs is within walking distance. But the pleasure I take in having everything within walking distance reflects my experience living in Europe for so many years: honestly, I’d be hard put to return to North America’s car culture—among other things run counter to my sensibilities, like gun-violence, credit-card (debt), and anti-healthcare, anti-education culture. I adore the Swiss public transport systems, using trains to get places. I love how riding the bus isn’t an indicator of my social status. Of course, there are cultural problems with living in Switzerland, too. It shares a racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-woman mentality with the States. I have friends who experience the general racism. I’ve experienced the anti-immigrant attitudes even within my Swiss family (along with the “we don’t mean you” attitude; I’m their immigrant, an accepted immigrant, ha!). And honestly, where does a woman escape the misogynists?
What makes home Home? When is Place considered Home? And how has Home and Place impacted your life experiences and views?
Meredith Writes 