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On being Transatlantic: a personal reflection
I actually study a thing called transatlantic literary studies. It's a relatively new field, so don't feel like you're out of the loop if you don't know what I'm taking about. Basically rather than looking at literature purely in a nationalistic tradition it seeks to look at how the image of the Atlantic Ocean unites, fractures and allows for transformations and borrowings across cultures. It's the new Area Studies and the new Comp lit and I find it extremely fascinating.
But I haven't considered how much my interest might be fuelled by the fact that I am transatlantic. I grew up in southern California and ventured just a few hours north for college and my first year of married life. I'd travelled to exotic, foreign parts and even spent a semester at Oxford. But there is something quite different about visiting a place versus living in a place. My husband and I have lived in Scotland for nearly 2 and a half years now. Edinburgh feels like home, but so does California. What does this all mean for who I am?
Frankly, I don't know. I do know that the pervasive sense of dislocation is a helpful spiritual exercise; I now know more of what it means to be a 'sojourner' in this world and to be in the world but not of it as I'm not quite 'at home' in the UK although because of my physical and philosophical distance from the US, I'm also not quite at home there. I've come to require that I view this displacement as a good, necessary thing.
I don't know where I'll end up and how I might long for the other place when I'm more permanently in one of the two countries I inhabit. We've just arrived back from a visit to the States. It was so wonderful to be home (the CA home) with family and friends at Christmas. But what was most wonderful was a pervading sense of normalcy associated with the places we were. I knew the rules, how to act, and I didn't stand out or sound different from other people. Maybe I just like to blend in too much. In fact when we left to fly back to Edinburgh, my father-in-law asked, "Are you going home or going to Scotland?" My husband and I stopped and thought for a second and said "I think a little of both". And I think I'm learning to live more comfortably in that ambiguity.
Ashley, do I ever empathise! One of the reasons I chose the online name “Atlantic” was for my ‘transatlanticness’.
I am in a slightly different situation but I would agree that the increased sensation of being a sojourner in this world is a real spiritual exercise. My DH and I originally came to London hoping to move to Wales eventually, and the first few years it bothered me immensely that I was living neither where I was from, nor where I intended to settle down. It felt like living six inches from contact with the ground, continuously. After a while, I more or less got used to that sensation….but our plans have been delayed and now it’s looking like they may never happen. That’s when I realised that I had accepted my ‘dislocation’ only to the extent that I believed it was temporary. :/ Even now it’s really, really hard not to pray, “Dear Lord, I think I’ve learned this lesson, so can I please have a home on earth now?”
It's probably compounded by the fact that I haven't been back to the States for several years, so I don't expect to feel very at home there culturally - and definitely not with regards to family, for that matter (a lot has changed).
Incidentally, I had never heard of transatlantic literary studies before. It sounds interesting. It also reminds me of a comment I read a few years ago, I think in the introduction to Norman Davies’ The Isles, where the author mentions that a Polish colleague of his was surprised that there was no field that addressed the relationships between the British literatures of different languages – English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, etc. Unless perhaps it exists by now?
Ashley, both my brother-in-law and one of my dear friends are "transatlantic" -- American up until young adulthood and now both living in Europe for over 10 years. Both are multilingual, both married Europeans and both have children. I also think that both would return to live in the States with their families if they could, if only temporarily.
I think that "dislocation" can happen even within a country -- I have lived several places in the US and loved all of them, though of course my "roots" are deepest in the part of the country in which I grew up (I now live in my husband's hometown; my hometown is in the neighboring state). Part of this is due to where my family is, which I think is important. I find that as I've gotten older, being "settled" near my place of "origin" is a lot more important to me -- especially in the sense of passing heritage on to my kids.
I guess I'm saying this to say that I don't think that a desire to "belong" somewhere and to have an earthly home are necessarily to be spurned. (Not that you are doing that!) This also isn't to say that one cannot make a "home" wherever one is. I also think we all will always have unresolved feelings about a lot of connections and places -- at least in this world :-)
Dunno much about academic lit, but I know there's an extensive body of literature on nomads & dislocation and whatnot in poststructuralism (viz., Deleuze).
You explicated the idea really well in that post. If the field is as cool as your post intimates, it sounds rad.
Atlantic thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate what you've said, especially that you'd accepted dislocation only as long as it was temporary! That is so very true. As we deal with the fact that we might live here indefinitely, it is trying to think of all our friends moving away and getting more settled. That's an interesting comment about British languages, and as far as I know there isn't one field that seeks to look at all of them cohesively; if English and Scottish lit is compared, usually Welsh is left out and I'm sure that's the same with regards to Welsh and English as well. I don't know if there's something like "British Studies" that would include all of it? Interesting.
Bonnie, Thanks for your response and story as well. I agree with you of course that being settled isn't a bad thing and part of my problem is that I would gravitate towards putting down roots in one place rather than this more nomadic life I'm living and I think both are very good ways to live. "Home" indeed can be made anywhere; I think the sticking point is what Atlantic said about feeling dislocation is temporary and therefore, making a home is endlessly deferred.
jpe, thanks for your comment and the nod to Deleuze, Spivak, Bhabha, Said, etc. Obviously transatlantic studies isn't so autobiographical as my post intimates, but maybe one day it will allow for more creative writing in the field!
Ashley,
I very much sympathise with how you're feeling just now. We're still asked 'So, are you settled into London life yet?" It's been 2 and a bit years and, we are and we aren't settled.
As Sarah says in her comment, many of us have strong feelings and emotions about different places and connections we've made. I think you feel it more as you move from place to place. Once you leave Edinburgh, it becomes another place that was once home.
I think trying to make a home wherever you are is important, and helps you feel more settled.
Glad you had a nice time at your other home!
