"I don't want to leave here, I don't want to stay. It feels like pinching to me either way. And the places that I long for the most, are the places I have been. They are calling out to me like a long lost friend"
Sarah Groves
As an expatriate, I am again struggling with the idea of belonging. As we are getting ourselves ready to uproot once again and go "back" home I am reminded of my childhood and all the times we moved around the World. It was all that you would expect, difficult to leave friends and familiar routines, and exciting to learn new ways and meet new people. Transition is difficult for humans. Change is uncomfortable. I often feel like I'm floating between places, not belonging anywhere and sadly not able to belong anywhere. I am called a third culture citizen, and I know I am not alone. I wake not knowing where I am, which has an unsettling residue, it's hard to shake. Growing roots is a concept rather than a fact of my life. A rootless plant.
I attach to feeling European when I'm in the States, I attach to being Swedish when I'm in Europe and I attach to the experience of a Taoseño when I'm in Taos. It's complicated, yet I also could not imagine living without the wide perspective that expatriatism affords. It's a tribe in itself. A bunch of rootless plants. We find each other out there in the world and there is an unspoken understanding of what I'm describing. I found it in Barcelona, and I found it living in Berlin.
I have always been the outsider, as a kid living everywhere, "home" was where my passport said it was. I never belonged deeply to any culture and yet belong to them all in some way or another. Back to the third culture citizen, a description that did not exist yet when I was a kid. We just called ourselves world citizens with permanent culture shock. I will be going to a high school reunion in a week, in Paris, where I attended the American School in Paris. Possibly with people I have little in common with to date, other than this exact experience that defines us as adults today. This may sound extravagant, but Paris is a two hour flight from Berlin, at a commuter price of less than 50 bucks. That's Europe.
Last week we took another trip, first to Prague then my friend Cedar and I went on to Poland. We visited Oświeçim, also known as Auschwitz, and the bustling city of Krakow. I could write plenty around the heartbreaking experience of seeing the concentration camps, (which I think should be mandatory for all in Europe to see) but not now. I do have two lasting thoughts from that experience
How did so many people perish under everyones eyes? (Out of the 6 million Jews that were tortured and murdered, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp alone brutally massacred 1.1 million Jews, and another several hundred thousand people of various ethnicities and abilities. People knew.) And, is it happening today under a different pretext? "Those who do not know history, are condemned to repeat it". Edmund Burke This question is a debate we need to have, not one to wave away while buying another distraction.
No wonder Europeans drink so much! There's a lot of trauma and war on this continent. I still admire the lengths various warring nations have gone to keep the history alive, with the hope of changing the course for the future generations. Especially in Germany. If you visit here and did not notice the remnants of WWII or the East-West schism, you must have had your eyes closed. It's just that crazy juxtaposition as you walk by the bombed out church, (also the site of the 2016 Christmas market attack) with your flat white in hand looking for the Apple store.
My experience as a terminal outsider is a cultural one. I guess I feel as if I belong to my friends, my fellow expats, my experiences in all the various places I find myself in. In the end I simply belong here, on the planet, with the rest of you 7.5 billion humans.
I have a concept brewing around borders, boundaries on a globe, that act to divide people rather than bring them together. Some sculptural manifestation of the softness and hardness of these lines, these territories on a map, and how they change so quickly at the whim of politics.
But for now, here in Berlin it's crunch time for us. Finishing Christian's sculpture With Open Arms, as well as packing logistics and moving logistics, and taming the certain anxiety of returning home...it's a full plate, which goes well with a dry Sauvignon Blanc.
It's been two years since we embarked on this adventure. I like to think it's not the end, rather the beginning of new trail, and who knows where it will lead. Experience ages us well. Which reminds me of part of this tune on lingering..
"..and as time goes by...mmmm..I look at you an sigh....it was goodnight and not good bye"
I am obsessed with this video and the song by The Blaze called Territory. I can't relate but yet I can, which pretty much sums up this post. A rootless plant, I tell you.
See you soon.
Sarah Groves
As an expatriate, I am again struggling with the idea of belonging. As we are getting ourselves ready to uproot once again and go "back" home I am reminded of my childhood and all the times we moved around the World. It was all that you would expect, difficult to leave friends and familiar routines, and exciting to learn new ways and meet new people. Transition is difficult for humans. Change is uncomfortable. I often feel like I'm floating between places, not belonging anywhere and sadly not able to belong anywhere. I am called a third culture citizen, and I know I am not alone. I wake not knowing where I am, which has an unsettling residue, it's hard to shake. Growing roots is a concept rather than a fact of my life. A rootless plant.
I attach to feeling European when I'm in the States, I attach to being Swedish when I'm in Europe and I attach to the experience of a Taoseño when I'm in Taos. It's complicated, yet I also could not imagine living without the wide perspective that expatriatism affords. It's a tribe in itself. A bunch of rootless plants. We find each other out there in the world and there is an unspoken understanding of what I'm describing. I found it in Barcelona, and I found it living in Berlin.
I have always been the outsider, as a kid living everywhere, "home" was where my passport said it was. I never belonged deeply to any culture and yet belong to them all in some way or another. Back to the third culture citizen, a description that did not exist yet when I was a kid. We just called ourselves world citizens with permanent culture shock. I will be going to a high school reunion in a week, in Paris, where I attended the American School in Paris. Possibly with people I have little in common with to date, other than this exact experience that defines us as adults today. This may sound extravagant, but Paris is a two hour flight from Berlin, at a commuter price of less than 50 bucks. That's Europe.
How did so many people perish under everyones eyes? (Out of the 6 million Jews that were tortured and murdered, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp alone brutally massacred 1.1 million Jews, and another several hundred thousand people of various ethnicities and abilities. People knew.) And, is it happening today under a different pretext? "Those who do not know history, are condemned to repeat it". Edmund Burke This question is a debate we need to have, not one to wave away while buying another distraction.
No wonder Europeans drink so much! There's a lot of trauma and war on this continent. I still admire the lengths various warring nations have gone to keep the history alive, with the hope of changing the course for the future generations. Especially in Germany. If you visit here and did not notice the remnants of WWII or the East-West schism, you must have had your eyes closed. It's just that crazy juxtaposition as you walk by the bombed out church, (also the site of the 2016 Christmas market attack) with your flat white in hand looking for the Apple store.
My experience as a terminal outsider is a cultural one. I guess I feel as if I belong to my friends, my fellow expats, my experiences in all the various places I find myself in. In the end I simply belong here, on the planet, with the rest of you 7.5 billion humans.
I have a concept brewing around borders, boundaries on a globe, that act to divide people rather than bring them together. Some sculptural manifestation of the softness and hardness of these lines, these territories on a map, and how they change so quickly at the whim of politics.
But for now, here in Berlin it's crunch time for us. Finishing Christian's sculpture With Open Arms, as well as packing logistics and moving logistics, and taming the certain anxiety of returning home...it's a full plate, which goes well with a dry Sauvignon Blanc.
It's been two years since we embarked on this adventure. I like to think it's not the end, rather the beginning of new trail, and who knows where it will lead. Experience ages us well. Which reminds me of part of this tune on lingering..
"..and as time goes by...mmmm..I look at you an sigh....it was goodnight and not good bye"
I am obsessed with this video and the song by The Blaze called Territory. I can't relate but yet I can, which pretty much sums up this post. A rootless plant, I tell you.
See you soon.
I love your idea of doing a work of art around borders and global boundaries! Especially after reading this post and how it would be also expressing your personal experience! You go girl. Can't wait to have you all back in Taos!
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