I Once Was from Umbridge

Oct 28, 2010 | An Expat, Stories

Last night I remember dreaming that I was surrounded by people I was meeting for the first time. It seems like I was in a large group of international students, and for some reason I’d decided to speak with an English accent the entire time, and I had them all convinced I was from Umbridge. (Is Umbridge even a place? It seems like it is in Alice and Wonderland.) Eventually I decided to drop the accent and I began to speak with my normal voice. People were very surprised to discover that I was from the South. Why I wanted to convince anyone otherwise, I am not really sure.

{Do your dreams ever make sense? Mine don’t.}

It’s a funny thing, this expatriate experience, when it comes to deciding who you are and where you’re from. For my four years in Scotland I did my best to learn to choose words that would avoid my speech being a distraction to what I’m trying to say. Did that make any sense? I mean to say that I purposely trained myself to say trousers instead of pants. Lift instead of elevator. Biscuit instead of cookie. To change my sentence structures. And it was in an attempt to hopefully have people listen to what I wanted to say, instead of the words I was choosing.

A year later, I’m here in South Africa, and it feels a little like starting all over again. Now biscuits are cookies. Trousers are pants. But my cell phone is still a mobile and I sometimes still have to ask where the toilet is, instead of the bathroom or restroom. And that sure is painful…I hate saying ‘toilet’ almost as much as I dislike the word ‘packet.’

And sometimes, when I go back to the Carolinas, I’m suddenly uncertain of who I am anymore.  What do I mean to say? Can I still nip to the loo in North Carolina? What if I say scone in such a way that it rhymes with ‘on’ instead of ‘own’? And what am I doing eating scones if there are biscuits around? Southern biscuits, not cookies, mind you. It sure does get confusing when you and your South African/British husband and your Scottish-African-American son have to decide whether you’re going to speak to each other in British English, South African English, or American English, based on where your feet are at the moment. Will the Bear understand I want to change his diaper instead of his nappy?

The other day I baked (from scratch!) buttery, southern biscuits (which are kind of like scones, friends outside the US) and then asked the Bear if he wanted a biscuit. He immediately started signing for a “cookie” and saying please because to him, biscuit and cookie are the same thing. That was strange. Whose kid are you??

As you know, since I’ve kind of been talking about it a lot, I’m looking forward to my toes touching Carolina soil again. But can I just make one simple request of you, friends that I’ll see while I’m there?

Please don’t pay too much attention (or make too much fun) of the words coming out of my mouth. I’ll do my best to revert back to my drawl and my Southern-American speech patterns, but if sentences like,

Do y’all fancy a spot of tea?

or

Dern, Bill’s Hot Dog’s are lekker!

come out of my mouth, do your best not to laugh too loud.

I’m really from Umbridge, after all.

xCC

In My Mind, I’m Goin’ to Carolina

Oct 27, 2010 | An Expat, Stories

There’s a funny thing I’ve noticed happening more and more lately, that I thought I might ramble about for a moment right here. And it’s best explained with the assistance of a beautiful James Taylor song that illustrates it perfectly with these lyrics:

In my mind, I’m goin’ to Carolina
Can’t you see the sunshine
Can’t you just feel the moonshine
Ain’t it just like a friend of mine
It hit me from behind
Yes, I’m gone to Carolina in my mind

It seems like there are these parts of ourselves that come out of nowhere and remind us of where we’re from, no matter how long we’ve been away.

These are the snapshots that find me home:

With the windows down, we drive through a noisy, crowded section of a town called Mthatha on the way to East London. Women are carrying bulky things on their heads, babies are bundled onto backs with blankets. People are selling necklaces and salad servers, wooden giraffes and painted canvas on the sidewalk in front of a big gas station. A tractor digging up a section of sidewalk lifts its crane and a woman quickly skirts out of the way. An advertisement for safe abortions hangs on a telephone pole. Life seems so different, and like Samwise Gamgee, commenting to Frodo Baggins, I ponder for a moment whether this might perhaps be the furthest away from home I’ve ever been.

Suddenly traffic is moving and the wind is in my hair and between my fingers out the window, and we pass a chicken place called Zebros. As the spicy, crispy smells make their way in through Potato’s window, I am suddenly whisked to the carport of my grandmother’s house. My Dad is cooking on the grill, his amazing spicy chicken wings. I feel my lips tingling a little from the spice but I want to keep eating anyway.

And half a world away is suddenly taking me right back home.

We’re at home in Gordon’s Bay and the Bear has taken the opportunity to make some mischief. I hear the words “I swoney, Bear” come out of my mouth. {I’m not sure how that’s spelled but it rhymes with honey.} And suddenly I’m back in the kitchen with my Mama. She’s standing at the stove and I’m fetching something from the pantry that is chockablock full of canned goods, Jell-O mix, salsa jars, brown rice, Hershey’s cocoa powder, and enough stuff that I often wonder how long we could survive just on the stuff in my Mom’s pantry. I can hear her say “I swoney, Caroline” and I sound just like her.

We’re on the floor in our living room, South Africa’s south-easter blowing outside, I’m tickling the Bear. He tilts his head back and a drawn out and heavy laugh escapes from his throat. Suddenly I’m eight years old and my brother has just finished reading me a story. I wasn’t supposed to have dessert because I didn’t finish my vegetables but he sneaks me cookies and milk anyway. I remember him making me laugh, me throwing my head back, and another long, drawn out laugh escapes from a throat, this time it’s mine. But it’s twenty years later and with a sigh I hope the Bear is a good big brother, too, someday.

The hair straighteners my sis-in-love let me borrow are busy warming up and I glide them through a layer of hair as the Bear dances and points at himself in the mirror in front of me. The smell of my hair heating up brings me back to my sister’s bedroom, where she’s applying my makeup and fixing my hair. I must only be six or seven years old…we have a dance recital tonight and she’s helping me get ready. I sit patiently as her curling iron works its magic, I struggle to keep my eyes shut as she attempts to apply eyeshadow. The Bear has finished dancing in front of the mirror, and is now carefully pretending to squirt the heat resistance hair spray at my scalp. He gently touches my head with it, puts it down, picks up the hairbrush and attempts a few brush strokes. Like the hair brush moving back and forth, twenty years are gone, and back again.

The surprising thing is, I’ve now counted my days outside Carolina to have stretched long beyond the 365 mark. This may not be the furthest away from home I’ve ever been, but it is definitely the longest. And yet, more frequently it seems, my mind takes me back again. A smell, a sound, a sight, a taste, the sound of the wind rushing through our chimney that hearkens me back to power outages and hurricanes and my childhood.

It’s a beautiful thing, these five senses. I sometimes take the time to be thankful for them. Without you even asking them to, they carry home with you. They remember things you don’t know you remembered. And they bring them back at moments when you’re so glad to have them there.

And though it’s still a while before the soles of my shoes will touch the crisp, autumn Carolina soil, still I’m joyful that, every once in a while, I’m goin’ to Carolina, in my mind.

xCC