I was exchanging email with Elphaba this week, a sort of mutual admiration society, and she wondered if anyone had pointed out how much my writing style in my diary has changed over the last four years. She thought my current style was so much more relaxed and confident than the stuff from 1997.
Well, yes. I left Nashville in 1997. I left a culture where I was a fish out of water, and people found my gasping for air offensive and peculiar. Everything, and I truly mean everything, I did was wrong or lacking. I was criticized for my sense of humor because I refused to listen to racist jokes. I was horrified to be asked what church I attended during a job interview; they were horrified that I mentioned it was against the law to do so. I was denied bonuses because I didn't smile enough. My abrupt Northern ways terrified my coworkers. I didn't make any close friends; when I moved home there were no entries in my address book for Tennesseans. It was a long, sad, painful sojourn and it did great damage to my self-esteem.
I was thinking about that as I caught up with the inspirationally creative Kash at Sticky Fingers and came across this quote:
Security is knowing what the hell is going on. Security is knowing how to get what you want with reasonable confidence your needs will be meet given the right approach. Security is a state of non-anxiety. Living in a foreign culture is a definite state of anxiety. Yes, but you say if you live in a foreign culture long enough you do start to calm down. I don't. I lived in Japan a total of three years, spoke the language almost as well as I speak English, and I tell you, there is no peace there for me.
Oh, Kash, you've nailed it. I lived in the South for eight years, and I never found peace there. It was a foreign culture to me. I thought I spoke the language, but I didn't, not really. I lived in a state of unending, nightmarish anxiety, and my writing reflected that. Since I've moved back I feel a sense of grace. I'm not surprised it's turned up in my writing. I am profoundly grateful to be in a culture that makes sense to me, and where my personality is a pro instead of a con. I have a deep-seated sense of security. Buying a house has enhanced that.
This is where I belong.
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