Said the Robin to the Oak Tree:
“Friend, I think that you must be
The saddest living thing
That the world has ever seen
Just look at me, and you’ll see why:
I catch the wind and soar on high
While you stay rooted to the ground
And wave your silly branches
I was excited. We’d only lived in Ireland a few months—long enough to begin to feel the reality of deep differences, but not nearly long enough to adjust to them. Our second son had just been born, a different experience in a different medical system, and we needed to register his birth at the United States embassy. American soil, in Ireland. It would be nice to get a little taste of all we’d left behind. A few hours on the motorway got us to Dublin, where we found the US embassy—a big round thing looking out of place on its street-corner, like a landed UFO. Like us.
Continue reading A Trip To The EmbassySomewhere over the Atlantic, there’s a metal tube with wings. Inside, a man sits in a seat called 38F, surrounded by strangers. And the strangest thing of all is the fact that he’s a stranger, too. He doesn’t feel like one, because he knows where he came from and where he’s going and why. He knows someone. He knows the man in 38F. At least, he knows him better than he knows any of the people around him.
But they don’t.
Continue reading The Man In 38F“Daddy,
Put a kiss in my hand,
And while you’re away I can hold it
Up to my cheek
And be happy
Knowing that you really love me”
“Daddy,
Here’s a kiss in your hand,
And while you’re away you can hold it
Up to your cheek
And I’ll give you
My love from a long way away”
My daughter is seven, but her love is much bigger than her size would suggest. She said this (ok, I’ve paraphrased) before I left home for a week, and here I am sitting on the other side of an ocean with my hand on my face and no one knows why.
Growing up in Alabama, I knew the rules: I knew when to say “yes, ma’am” and how to order a Sprite by asking for a Coke and waiting for the server to say “What kind?” I knew what was expected of me, and I knew what to expect from others. I knew how to say things so that people would listen, and when I needed opportunities, I was confident that doors would open and people would give me trust. And I was right. Even when I made mistakes, the trust remained and I knew I would have the help I needed to get back up and try again. Alabama was good to me, and I learned to expect it. I didn’t even think about it.
Continue reading On Being An ImmigrantLast year on our flight to America, my boys were looking forward to the Pac-Man knockoff game on the in-flight entertainment system before we even boarded. My daughter remembered which movies she had watched two flights before. She had just turned six, and was about to take her fourth trip over the Atlantic.
This was not my childhood.
Ten years ago today, I got on an airplane in Washington DC with my pregnant wife and one year old son, and we all left the only country we’d ever lived in. The airport was busy with people heading the other direction: it was Barack Obama’s Inauguration Day, 2009. A couple of meals and movies later, we landed in Ireland. We were met at the airport by coworkers, and on the way home we stopped at Pizza Hut. During the meal, my wife noticed that we had left the diaper bag in the trunk. No problem, our coworker was happy to get the nappy bag out of the boot. We looked at each other and knew: it might be Pizza Hut, but it was definitely not America!
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