Month: April 2017

You and me, America. Ride or die.

Tomorrow I will be sworn in as a United States citizen along with a beautiful array of other Marylanders.

For forty years I’ve lived in a liminal space between two countries. I’ve crossed “my” bridge dozens of times, my heart lifting to arrive on the other side and relieved to be allowed back again. I know the town where I lived for only the first year of my life better than any except the place I live now as an adult. All the back ways. All the places I’ve skated, swum, biked, run, bowled. All the directions based on things that used to be there.

There are too many stories spanning four decades. No one of them is representative; my trips back are layered over each other in memory, the roads shortening and the house shrinking as I grew. Here, in this house for the past eleven years, is the longest I’ve lived anywhere. My family has stayed for decades in the same spots, anchoring home for me.

It’s been real, Canada. This is not goodbye.