It’s cold enough to freeze your tires square.
January 29, 2024 3:15 PM Subscribe
How long does it take to belong to a place? "From Here" by Annie Wenstrup for About Place Journal:
People introduce themselves like this: their name and how long they’ve been here. Like this, I’m Annie. I’ve lived in Alaska for twenty-five years, I’ve spent the last fourteen years in Fairbanks. There. Now you know I belong here, I’m not someone passing through.
About Place Journal previously.
People introduce themselves like this: their name and how long they’ve been here. Like this, I’m Annie. I’ve lived in Alaska for twenty-five years, I’ve spent the last fourteen years in Fairbanks. There. Now you know I belong here, I’m not someone passing through.
About Place Journal previously.
Well, this essay went a lot deeper than I was expecting baed not this tiny pullquote. It's a really interesting reflection on place and belonging and permanence and a lot of other things.
My own sort of early knee-jerk response to the question is one I answered for myself in the late Nineties.
I'd moved with mr hippybear to his job teaching at Eastern Oregon University, which is very eastern and very Oregon and very rural, despite being a fairly good sized school and in a decent sized town. Town, not city.
Anyway, breaking into a place like that as an outsider with no real context other than being the gay partner of a computer science professor is nearly impossible, especially nearly 30 years ago, and I decided the way to do it was to find the most local of the local bars and plant myself there.
In this town, it was The Longbranch, a miracle of a place, back then was a 24-hour short-order diner in the front and a working class bar in the back. And they offered a 9oz Coors Light draught for $0.90. So for $10 I could go in, drink shit beer for hours, and still leave a tip when I was ready to leave.
And a bar with a short order diner in the front has a built in late night clientele and I could see opening one of these as a money making machine. Anyway....
So that's what I did. For months. The bartender there, after seeing me there for several nights, struck up a conversation, and over time she and I got to know each other. But that doesn't mean the locals will talk to you. So I'd go in a few nights a week, talk to Jeannie, enjoy whatever was on the television, chain smoke my Camels and drink my Coors Lights, and wander home. The bar was only a 5 minute walk from the house, which made it even easier.
I remember the evening clearly. It was at right around the 10 month mark, and I went in and sat down and said hello to Jeannie and got my beer and lit my smoke, and suddenly someone I'd seen a million times and exchanged bar pleasantries with casually for a long while was sitting next to me and asking me about me and telling me about them. And then someone else was on the other side of me, and we were moving from the bar to a table, and it became a bigger group than I could have expected.
It was like I had passed the test, the initiation... or else they realized that I was just going to keep coming back and they might as well make peace with me. But either way, that night opened up doors for me. I suddenly found invitations to things going on, had offers for work that had never been available before, and even once or twice when I needed someone at my back, I had them there for me.
I haven't done that with the small town I've lived in for the past 20 years. Largely because I've been mostly employed in the larger city that is a short drive away, a resource unavailable for me in that small town those decades ago. But I'm feeling it keenly now, how I have no real connection with where I actually live. After working in the city for years, I'm now unemployed and I have no local context. I'm just a stranger in the place I've lived longer than anywhere else I've lived in my life.
I need to figure out how to change this, I think.
Anyway, lovely essay, I'm glad I read it. My thoughts are not nearly as deep as those.
posted by hippybear at 3:51 PM on January 29 [62 favorites]
My own sort of early knee-jerk response to the question is one I answered for myself in the late Nineties.
I'd moved with mr hippybear to his job teaching at Eastern Oregon University, which is very eastern and very Oregon and very rural, despite being a fairly good sized school and in a decent sized town. Town, not city.
Anyway, breaking into a place like that as an outsider with no real context other than being the gay partner of a computer science professor is nearly impossible, especially nearly 30 years ago, and I decided the way to do it was to find the most local of the local bars and plant myself there.
In this town, it was The Longbranch, a miracle of a place, back then was a 24-hour short-order diner in the front and a working class bar in the back. And they offered a 9oz Coors Light draught for $0.90. So for $10 I could go in, drink shit beer for hours, and still leave a tip when I was ready to leave.
And a bar with a short order diner in the front has a built in late night clientele and I could see opening one of these as a money making machine. Anyway....
So that's what I did. For months. The bartender there, after seeing me there for several nights, struck up a conversation, and over time she and I got to know each other. But that doesn't mean the locals will talk to you. So I'd go in a few nights a week, talk to Jeannie, enjoy whatever was on the television, chain smoke my Camels and drink my Coors Lights, and wander home. The bar was only a 5 minute walk from the house, which made it even easier.
I remember the evening clearly. It was at right around the 10 month mark, and I went in and sat down and said hello to Jeannie and got my beer and lit my smoke, and suddenly someone I'd seen a million times and exchanged bar pleasantries with casually for a long while was sitting next to me and asking me about me and telling me about them. And then someone else was on the other side of me, and we were moving from the bar to a table, and it became a bigger group than I could have expected.
It was like I had passed the test, the initiation... or else they realized that I was just going to keep coming back and they might as well make peace with me. But either way, that night opened up doors for me. I suddenly found invitations to things going on, had offers for work that had never been available before, and even once or twice when I needed someone at my back, I had them there for me.
I haven't done that with the small town I've lived in for the past 20 years. Largely because I've been mostly employed in the larger city that is a short drive away, a resource unavailable for me in that small town those decades ago. But I'm feeling it keenly now, how I have no real connection with where I actually live. After working in the city for years, I'm now unemployed and I have no local context. I'm just a stranger in the place I've lived longer than anywhere else I've lived in my life.
I need to figure out how to change this, I think.
Anyway, lovely essay, I'm glad I read it. My thoughts are not nearly as deep as those.
posted by hippybear at 3:51 PM on January 29 [62 favorites]
I do recommend reading TFA before answering the question, as much as I love when we get chatty; like hippybear said, there's a lot more going on here.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:47 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:47 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
It was a great article. And yes certainly covers a lot more than just how long you've lived in a place. For me it was also about how much you respect and engage with a place, to recognise it's unique features and embrace them. And of course anti-colloniasm.
In terms of them just being there for two winters (as the local rule of thumb):
I took over managing a small business in a very affluent generational wealth type town in Surrey in the UK.
I was there for three years, I employed three full-time local people, and worked with many of the local businesses around town as my preferred suppliers. I recommended my out of town customers visited other local businesses as much as possible, gave them local maps and personalised guides. But I was certainly not a local.
One of the local businesses I worked with, was an independant florists. The shop owner's family had moved into the town when she was just six months old. She had essentially spent their whole life in this town through schooling, and all her work. She was now in her 50s. But was definietly not classed as a local.
If she had the audacity to even imply that she was a local, and that her shop was locally owned, her shop would be pelted with eggs by the 'true locals'.
The rule of thumb there was something like your parents needed to have been born in town, or maybe lived in the town for at least 20 years before you were born, for you to even potentially be classed as a local yourself.
I hated that town.
posted by many-things at 4:56 PM on January 29 [8 favorites]
In terms of them just being there for two winters (as the local rule of thumb):
I took over managing a small business in a very affluent generational wealth type town in Surrey in the UK.
I was there for three years, I employed three full-time local people, and worked with many of the local businesses around town as my preferred suppliers. I recommended my out of town customers visited other local businesses as much as possible, gave them local maps and personalised guides. But I was certainly not a local.
One of the local businesses I worked with, was an independant florists. The shop owner's family had moved into the town when she was just six months old. She had essentially spent their whole life in this town through schooling, and all her work. She was now in her 50s. But was definietly not classed as a local.
If she had the audacity to even imply that she was a local, and that her shop was locally owned, her shop would be pelted with eggs by the 'true locals'.
The rule of thumb there was something like your parents needed to have been born in town, or maybe lived in the town for at least 20 years before you were born, for you to even potentially be classed as a local yourself.
I hated that town.
posted by many-things at 4:56 PM on January 29 [8 favorites]
Yes, well, if your cat had kittens in the oven you wouldn’t call them muffins, would you? <- I have encountered this in the wild
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:34 PM on January 29 [3 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:34 PM on January 29 [3 favorites]
Some years ago, my parents wanted to put a shed in the backyard, and where it would fit relative to the vegetable garden was within some number of feet of the fence line, so Dad had to file for some kind of permit or other, and the next-door neighbor made some amount of stink about it.
During the hearing, when the judge told Dad he would be allowed to have the shed built where he wanted to, the neighbor said something like, “you’re going to pick his side? He’s not even from around here!”
At the time, my parents had lived in that house something like 34 years.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 5:37 PM on January 29 [5 favorites]
During the hearing, when the judge told Dad he would be allowed to have the shed built where he wanted to, the neighbor said something like, “you’re going to pick his side? He’s not even from around here!”
At the time, my parents had lived in that house something like 34 years.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 5:37 PM on January 29 [5 favorites]
many-things, you've captured Little England perfectly in your comment.
I myself live in London, a city of about nine million people, of whom nobody other than those born in a couple of square miles just to the east of the central business district are ever considered to be 'from London'.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 5:46 PM on January 29 [3 favorites]
I myself live in London, a city of about nine million people, of whom nobody other than those born in a couple of square miles just to the east of the central business district are ever considered to be 'from London'.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 5:46 PM on January 29 [3 favorites]
This is a beautiful essay. Thank you for sharing it.
This question of relationship to place and time reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague, a person of wildly diverse lineage whose identity encompasses many cultures and continents. My colleague talks about his belief that people of European descent should embrace their cultural and ethnic heritage as a way of connecting with their own indigeneity and finding a better relationship with the greater-than-human world. I understand where he's coming from, but I find this concept sits awkwardly with my own heritage.
My ancestors are mostly English, Irish, and German, and many of them were forcibly deported from their homelands in the 19th century by imperial and colonial powers. (Others were complicit in empire and colonialism.) I have visited Ireland and England. In England, I felt no connection to the people or the landscape or the culture. It was foreign. I felt much more kinship to the people I met in Ireland, but also felt keenly that Irishness was not available for me to claim—too many Americans having already done so to suit their own political or commercial ends. German identity is even less accessible: my maternal line comes from Upper Lusatia, part of the long vanished kingdom of Bohemia that is now divided between Germany and Poland. My family fled Germany in 1889 amid unification. Embracing a German ethnicity would be ahistoric and presumptuous. I have no idea whether my ancestors were ethnically Saxon or Sorbian. I do not know what of the place and people they belonged to still exists.
I know where I do feel kinship with the land, where I observe the birds and feel myself in relation to them, and that is the upper Willamette Valley, where I have lived since I was a child. But as much as I feel a part of the landscape here, I am constantly aware that I cannot claim it, that others have held that claim since time immemorial.
I once heard a member of a tribe in whose territory I grew up say that the place he felt most at home was at the fork of two particular rivers, when the morning mist rises and signs of settler development fade away, and I thought, I know that confluence, and I know that mist, and it feels like home to me as well. But my tenancy has been brief relative to the whole human history of the place, and my connection is tenuous.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 6:16 PM on January 29 [10 favorites]
This question of relationship to place and time reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague, a person of wildly diverse lineage whose identity encompasses many cultures and continents. My colleague talks about his belief that people of European descent should embrace their cultural and ethnic heritage as a way of connecting with their own indigeneity and finding a better relationship with the greater-than-human world. I understand where he's coming from, but I find this concept sits awkwardly with my own heritage.
My ancestors are mostly English, Irish, and German, and many of them were forcibly deported from their homelands in the 19th century by imperial and colonial powers. (Others were complicit in empire and colonialism.) I have visited Ireland and England. In England, I felt no connection to the people or the landscape or the culture. It was foreign. I felt much more kinship to the people I met in Ireland, but also felt keenly that Irishness was not available for me to claim—too many Americans having already done so to suit their own political or commercial ends. German identity is even less accessible: my maternal line comes from Upper Lusatia, part of the long vanished kingdom of Bohemia that is now divided between Germany and Poland. My family fled Germany in 1889 amid unification. Embracing a German ethnicity would be ahistoric and presumptuous. I have no idea whether my ancestors were ethnically Saxon or Sorbian. I do not know what of the place and people they belonged to still exists.
I know where I do feel kinship with the land, where I observe the birds and feel myself in relation to them, and that is the upper Willamette Valley, where I have lived since I was a child. But as much as I feel a part of the landscape here, I am constantly aware that I cannot claim it, that others have held that claim since time immemorial.
I once heard a member of a tribe in whose territory I grew up say that the place he felt most at home was at the fork of two particular rivers, when the morning mist rises and signs of settler development fade away, and I thought, I know that confluence, and I know that mist, and it feels like home to me as well. But my tenancy has been brief relative to the whole human history of the place, and my connection is tenuous.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 6:16 PM on January 29 [10 favorites]
Just the one swan, I would say that you belong to the upper Willamette Valley! There is no need to claim land, or rather, the direction of claiming is from land to person. Even when connections are relatively brief (one lifetime, one decade, one year) rather than multigenerational, the way we live can help nurture those ties. I just moved (in fact) to SW Portland less than 2 years ago and I'm still very much learning how I can be in meaningful relationship to this place.
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:42 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:42 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
There's a common joke, which is not a joke, about country towns in NSW, which is that they'll accept anyone as a local, as long as their great-grandparents weren't blow-ins from the city. (A second to stop to think about it, and you'll understand why lots of people in country towns don't laugh). I see James Cook mentioned in the article, and yeah, he's part of my country too.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:48 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:48 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
Here in good old Boston, land of the bean and the cod, the traditional "not a native if your grandparents aren't from here" ethos is kind of fading, as shown by how both our mayor and a congresswoman are originally from Chicago, but we've still got remnants, like in Charlestown, where natives are Townies and new arrivals (i.e., people born somewhere else) are Toonies. And Dorchester has both OFDs (Originally from Dorchester) and DBCs (Dorchester by Choice).
And go to any neighborhood meeting and a key part is establishing your role in the neighborhood hierarchy by specifying exactly how long you've lived in the neighborhood, because obviously the longer you've lived there, the more attention people should pay you.
The best I've ever seen was during a meeting about a condo proposal in Roslindale (another Boston neighborhood) a few years ago when a 91-year-old neighbor said he'd been fighting developers over the site since the 1940s. And when he learned the developer was from West Roxbury, the neighborhood right next door, yelled at him: "There's plenty of land you can build on there! Go to West Roxbury where you belong!"
posted by adamg at 6:59 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
And go to any neighborhood meeting and a key part is establishing your role in the neighborhood hierarchy by specifying exactly how long you've lived in the neighborhood, because obviously the longer you've lived there, the more attention people should pay you.
The best I've ever seen was during a meeting about a condo proposal in Roslindale (another Boston neighborhood) a few years ago when a 91-year-old neighbor said he'd been fighting developers over the site since the 1940s. And when he learned the developer was from West Roxbury, the neighborhood right next door, yelled at him: "There's plenty of land you can build on there! Go to West Roxbury where you belong!"
posted by adamg at 6:59 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
I've lived in NYC for fifteen years.
A few years ago I was arrested for standing on a sidewalk that a cop wanted to illegally park on. The arresting officer looked me up and discovered that I had moved from Boston over a decade before and asked why I had to come to New York and tell them how things ought to be run. Later (for some reason, booking took about 4 hours), he told me that he planned to take the pension that I would be paying him and move to Florida. Which I think says that bullies will take any excuse to bully, and "local" is just another such excuse.
posted by novalis_dt at 7:41 PM on January 29 [6 favorites]
A few years ago I was arrested for standing on a sidewalk that a cop wanted to illegally park on. The arresting officer looked me up and discovered that I had moved from Boston over a decade before and asked why I had to come to New York and tell them how things ought to be run. Later (for some reason, booking took about 4 hours), he told me that he planned to take the pension that I would be paying him and move to Florida. Which I think says that bullies will take any excuse to bully, and "local" is just another such excuse.
posted by novalis_dt at 7:41 PM on January 29 [6 favorites]
Here in Central Coast California, the joke is that a native is anyone who's lived in the county/town for at least one year prior to whenever you arrived or were born here.
Or to put it another way: I am from a family that's resided in this town since 1912. But that doesn't matter, because as one county supervisor put it, I'm just a 'pro-development democrat'.
It's a lot like the old Carlin joke: "It's a big club and YOU AIN'T IN IT."
posted by LeRoienJaune at 8:24 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
Or to put it another way: I am from a family that's resided in this town since 1912. But that doesn't matter, because as one county supervisor put it, I'm just a 'pro-development democrat'.
It's a lot like the old Carlin joke: "It's a big club and YOU AIN'T IN IT."
posted by LeRoienJaune at 8:24 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
I have long ago learned the question is not what place or people you think you belong to, but rather who claims you as one of their own. It is a fraught concept here in the Americas and multilayerd, especially for Indigenous folks whose continuity of belonging has so often been upset by willing or unwilling movement and migration from place to place and boy does this essay do that justice. Thanks for posting it.
posted by salishsea at 9:00 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
posted by salishsea at 9:00 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
I was going to answer the teaser with Thursday morning; if you were here then, and you came back, you belong. Yet perhaps those of us belong to a place which no longer exists; perhaps the newcomers sleeping here belong to the bedroom community they begot.
To a physical place? When the tracks you carved through tangles of deadwood begin to be followed by wildlife. When the forage you cultivated becomes preferred by the herd; when the trees you planted host nests. When the inhabitants of a place embrace your impact there, you belong.
posted by backwoods at 9:25 PM on January 29 [4 favorites]
To a physical place? When the tracks you carved through tangles of deadwood begin to be followed by wildlife. When the forage you cultivated becomes preferred by the herd; when the trees you planted host nests. When the inhabitants of a place embrace your impact there, you belong.
posted by backwoods at 9:25 PM on January 29 [4 favorites]
I’ve lived in my inner-ish suburb for 20 years. I was born in this city, but not here. One parent was born in this city.
I’ve always been from Melbourne.
I’m from Footscray now.
I don’t expect I’ll ever be from Naarm.
posted by pompomtom at 3:45 AM on January 30
I’ve always been from Melbourne.
I’m from Footscray now.
I don’t expect I’ll ever be from Naarm.
posted by pompomtom at 3:45 AM on January 30
Living in a smaller mountain tourist town (Park City) which has exploded in growth last few years, and where there is a large seasonal influx of workers who come and go, I meet very few people who were born and raised here.
The closest I’ve seen to a local test, is a few people who have “I moved here before the Pandemic” stickers on their cars. That seems to be the cut-off right now.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:21 AM on January 30
The closest I’ve seen to a local test, is a few people who have “I moved here before the Pandemic” stickers on their cars. That seems to be the cut-off right now.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:21 AM on January 30
In DC, the answer is, if you didn’t grow up here you’ll never really be considered a local by people who did (and saying, “but nobody’s from here” just spotlights the fact that you aren’t a local.)
posted by ryanshepard at 7:02 AM on January 30 [1 favorite]
posted by ryanshepard at 7:02 AM on January 30 [1 favorite]
I have lived in my current city for more than half my life. However, I do not have a local accent. I like it here a lot, but as soon as I open my mouth I am not from here. That is ok with me. The place that I feel shaped me the most is the London suburb I grew up in. I am still fundamentally from there, and the fact that I left and moved somewhere both more urban and more provincial also defines me.
posted by plonkee at 8:30 AM on January 30
posted by plonkee at 8:30 AM on January 30
Interesting read, thanks. The whole topic of "where is home" has been on my mind a lot lately, largely because I don't really feel that sense of belonging, well, anywhere anymore. I've lived in four countries and at least a dozen cities over the past 20 years partly for career partially by choice. I guess the closest thing I have to an origin or roots is the US upper Midwest (because it's where most of my family still is), but weirdly it just never felt like a place I belonged or even wanted to live despite my family living in the same US state since it was still a territory (likely certain not-great experiences in childhood did not help).
Do some people just never feel that sense of cultural belonging and cohesion? I've always wondered how common it is and how people handle it, society in general is ultimately built around cultural identity and tribalism and doesn't seem to have a place for people who don't find a culture/country that both fits them and allows them to actually live there and integrate. Even in my social circles it doesn't seem common; most long-term US expats I've met still foster a very strong sense of identity from whatever region or state they hail from.
At any rate, just a thought, apologies if that was a bit long or rambling.
posted by photo guy at 10:03 AM on January 30
Do some people just never feel that sense of cultural belonging and cohesion? I've always wondered how common it is and how people handle it, society in general is ultimately built around cultural identity and tribalism and doesn't seem to have a place for people who don't find a culture/country that both fits them and allows them to actually live there and integrate. Even in my social circles it doesn't seem common; most long-term US expats I've met still foster a very strong sense of identity from whatever region or state they hail from.
At any rate, just a thought, apologies if that was a bit long or rambling.
posted by photo guy at 10:03 AM on January 30
How many Austinites does it take to change a lightbulb?
One to change it, and 9 to talk about how cool the old lightbulb was.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 12:51 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
One to change it, and 9 to talk about how cool the old lightbulb was.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 12:51 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
When I worked in a Dublin Hospital just after the turn of this century, I used to take my lunch downstairs to a round table where we all ate, gossiped and talked about telly. Everyone there had been to college and about half of us were working towards a higher degree or had already achieved that dubious honour: we were all 'educated'. One lunchtime, our bright young research associate turned to me and asked where I came from (. . . with that distinct middle-class-southern British accent by implication). I fobbed her off (and everyone else who was ear-wigging) with my standard cocktail-party story about the family being "horse-riding protestants from King's County" in the Irish Midlands. My colleague brought me up all standing by inviting me to "go back where you came from": England by implication. I was dumbfounded; my family had a paper trail showing that they had been living and dying in Ireland since 1643 - I bet she couldn't be so sure about where her people came from. So the answer to the question posed in TFA, for my people, in this place, is 400 years never.
Nevertheless the to-fro was a salutary lesson in checking my WASPy privs.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:05 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
Nevertheless the to-fro was a salutary lesson in checking my WASPy privs.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:05 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
I'm the same photo guy, I'm not from where I was born because I moved before I was a year old. I'm not from where I grew up because I wasn't born there and my family is from the nearby city. I'm not from where I live now because I've only been here for nearly half my adult life.
That said, I'd like to belong to the land here, even if the people won't see me that way.
posted by Braeburn at 3:06 PM on January 30
That said, I'd like to belong to the land here, even if the people won't see me that way.
posted by Braeburn at 3:06 PM on January 30
I’m sure the TSA agent has nothing better to do than listen to some rando’s bloodline story.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:07 PM on January 30
posted by Ideefixe at 3:07 PM on January 30
Come for the contemporary sense of not belonging (anywhere), stay for the poor little freezing Chickadees that loose 5% of their body weight keeping warm in Alaska by shivering all night long.
posted by sammyo at 3:24 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 3:24 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
I was born in New Zealand and I'm not Maaori. I understand not feeling like you belong. 'Nuf said.
posted by ngaiotonga at 7:02 PM on January 30
posted by ngaiotonga at 7:02 PM on January 30
I was kind of referring to the sense of leaving "home" and no longer having a culture of my own, but good point ngaiotonga. My dad has always been extremely proud of our roots here, but we are descended from the first settlers, not natives. Been in the US too long to really be able to declare ourselves tied to our European roots either.
posted by photo guy at 10:35 PM on January 30
posted by photo guy at 10:35 PM on January 30
In this town, it was The Longbranch, a miracle of a place, back then was a 24-hour short-order diner in the front and a working class bar in the back.
I think it is still there, too.
Do some people just never feel that sense of cultural belonging and cohesion?
I'm in that category. I've always moved around, from when I was a baby to now. So home is where ever I am, and I have probably a half dozen answers to "where are you from?" depending on the context. It seems comfortable and normal to me, but I've had lots of people find it weird and discomfiting.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:30 PM on January 31
I think it is still there, too.
Do some people just never feel that sense of cultural belonging and cohesion?
I'm in that category. I've always moved around, from when I was a baby to now. So home is where ever I am, and I have probably a half dozen answers to "where are you from?" depending on the context. It seems comfortable and normal to me, but I've had lots of people find it weird and discomfiting.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:30 PM on January 31
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I don’t know what the rules of thumb are in other places I’ve lived. Bridgeport was the only place small enough for the locals to have noticed someone new.
posted by notyou at 3:49 PM on January 29