Hannah and I headed out yesterday for a trip to see my dad, just outside of Atlanta. But I like to call it Hotlanta all the same, because it's terribly hot here in the South. It is not an endearing quality, unlike the magnolias, local honey, sweet potato pancakes, and lovely people, which are all very endearing and the reason that I keep coming back to my homeland.
I sometimes think of myself as an ambassador for the South, on my good days. And other times I have definitely been a foreigner in a foreign land, but not so much recently. I've learned how to speak parts of the language of the North, and then there are times when people look at me as they did when I was in France speaking French with all my heart and yet a total lack of understanding from the other person. Oh who am I kidding, I even had that happen in Africa and at my very college with my professors, but generally that was me looking befuddled by their words and not the other way around.
Things happen when you move away from your homeland. Things you don't understand. And I generally stand there and try to take it all in and then ask my husband what just happened and why people do that to one another. Not that he would ever claim that he's from the North, he stands by his determination that he is part of the West coast and, therefore, exempt from the term Yankee. But it's quite curious how much of the culture of the North he actually understands in comparison to myself.
I wonder sometimes, if our daughter will end up returning to one of our homelands or if she is completely and totally a child of Michigan and thus the North. Will I one day look across the table and see the culture, that we have been called to and are trying our best to immerse ourselves into for the glory of God, in everything she does. And part of me wonders if these trips to the South are for her as the living in the North is for me.
I sometimes think of myself as an ambassador for the South, on my good days. And other times I have definitely been a foreigner in a foreign land, but not so much recently. I've learned how to speak parts of the language of the North, and then there are times when people look at me as they did when I was in France speaking French with all my heart and yet a total lack of understanding from the other person. Oh who am I kidding, I even had that happen in Africa and at my very college with my professors, but generally that was me looking befuddled by their words and not the other way around.
Things happen when you move away from your homeland. Things you don't understand. And I generally stand there and try to take it all in and then ask my husband what just happened and why people do that to one another. Not that he would ever claim that he's from the North, he stands by his determination that he is part of the West coast and, therefore, exempt from the term Yankee. But it's quite curious how much of the culture of the North he actually understands in comparison to myself.
I wonder sometimes, if our daughter will end up returning to one of our homelands or if she is completely and totally a child of Michigan and thus the North. Will I one day look across the table and see the culture, that we have been called to and are trying our best to immerse ourselves into for the glory of God, in everything she does. And part of me wonders if these trips to the South are for her as the living in the North is for me.
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