Where Are You From?

I'm not from here. Or there.

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“Where are you from?” seems to be the very first question I’m asked when meeting someone new. It’s as if the inquirer is trying to make a connection, to find common ground. “Oh, from New Mexico! I went through there once. Have you seen Breaking Bad?” Thereupon hinges perhaps years of a new friendship.

When people ask, I hesitate to answer, because the answer could easily become a lengthy, boring monologue. Do they mean where I was born? Where I live now? Where I lived previously—all those places? North Carolina, New Jersey, Georgia, Vermont, New Mexico, Arizona...Canada?

I was born in North Carolina, but I don’t consider myself as being “from” there. My parents whisked me away to New Jersey when I was three months old. But although I have no memory of North Carolina, it does have some bearing on whom I am today. While looking into my ancestral past, I learned that my forebears lived there, having arrived in the early 1700s from Scotland and Ireland. Mostly farmers, they worked out their indenture before establishing their own subsistence farms. So, the colony was an important link in my family’s generational survival.

But I really grew up in New Jersey, where I spent my pre-teen years and developed my accent, and nurtured a love of colder weather and a liberal outlook. Many of my fondest memories are of playing in snow at our farm in the foothills of the Sourland Mountains, exploring the Raritan Valley with a friend on bicycle, and on school field trips learning about the state’s colonial past. But I don’t consider myself “from” there.

Then when I was twelve, my parents, seeking new opportunities, moved our family to Georgia. This Yankee experienced extreme culture shock, as the county we’d moved to was, in many ways, a microcosm of the 1920s. (Axe-toting Lester Maddox was still governor.) Although my ancestral roots run deep in the South—my forebears traveled to Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, and on down Old Muddy—my classmates considered me “from” the North because I talked funny.

Despite my difficulties, I found my tribe in college. I was introduced to music, art and all things creative—plus, I learned the value of friendships. My friends helped solidify my liberal outlook, and through them I learned that Georgia has many places of beauty. I went tubing on the muddy Chattahoochee, hiked around Anna Ruby Falls, and discovered my personal sanctuary, a vast cemetery by the Oconee River, where lying in the cool shade of magnolias, I studied poetry for a class on seventeenth century literature.

But I don’t consider myself “from” Georgia, either.

When I went to graduate school in Vermont, I suddenly became in the eyes of others “from” the South. On an errand to the administrative offices, I ran into the director of the school who, knowing I had just flown in from Georgia, surprised me by asking me to speak some “Southern.” I disabused him of that notion, not really wanting to be “from” the South.

I’d gone to Vermont not specifically because of the school’s reputation—there are many good schools elsewhere—but because it was an escape from the South. I desperately wanted to become a Vermonter, and so I stayed for nearly a quarter-century. But it’s said that someone “from away” can never really become a Vermonter; you have to have several generations behind you before you can wear that badge of honor.

For now, I’ll spare you the rest of my itinerary, even Canada, where I continue to spend summers. I consider my home to be New Mexico, where I’ve lived for many years. And yet I’m still not “from” New Mexico.

When people ask, maybe I should just say I’m “from away.”

“Where are you from?” is a question that really wants to ask a different one: “What are your values? Are you like me, or much different?”