"Welcome Home!" It's not the first time an immigration official has welcomed me back to the
U.S. with these words. No immigration official at Heathrow,
looking at the 14-year old stamp in my passport giving me leave to reside
indefinitely in the UK has ever said that to me.
I tend to hear the difference between the two countries rather than see it.
My first day back I hear someone bellowing into a mobile phone. First
thought is: loud, American tourist - Ooops. He's at home.
Standing at the till at Filene's department store are two lovely ladies from Derry. I am drawn to their
accents and find myself staring. How can I tell them that I spent half of last year in
Northern Ireland and the soft undulations of their voices sound to me like
home. If I was still thoroughly American I would simply say, "Hey are you
from Northern Ireland?"
The question filters through my brain most every day: Where is my home?
I note the cultural changes that Americans take for granted but seem new to
me: America has become a flat bread society: people are not eating as many sandwiches as they used to, instead they are rolling the fillings up in soft flat breads like tortillas.
It's in something new that I find my connection back to America as
my home. There's a new television channel that shows 24 hours a day of old
sports programmes. Not just classic matches but made for TV events from the
1950's like "Home Run Derby".
I settle down in the living room. On the screen are Willie Mays and
Mickey Mantle the two great baseball players of my boyhood. In vivid black and white the show
unlocks more than nostalgia, it unlocks a deeper connection to America than I feel in the street.
I finally feel Welcomed home.
