This American Life

If you had asked me on September 11, 2001 what I would be doing on the nine year anniversary of the tragedy, I wouldn't have known how to answer.  In these few months back in the USA between gigs abroad, I've thought long and hard about what it is to be American.  I sing along to country music and spent an evening in July dodging fireworks.  It's somehow appropriate that, on September 11, 2010, I was back at Notre Dame enjoying the most American of pastimes: college football.

If that sounds strange, consider what a college football game means.  At least once a year I travel across the country to meet up with my closest friends on the campus where we first met.  We reminisce about old times and eat and drink until we've probably done something stupid enough to reminisce about next year.  We cheer for the young men who represent this tradition on the field.  Win or lose, we end every game by putting our arms around each other and singing our Alma Mater.

This year, because of the anniversary, our marching band played "America the Beautiful" at halftime.  The background chatter died abruptly, and tens of thousands of people removed their hats and sang along.  I was awestruck.  The moment was a better tribute to our losses than anything words can express.

I thought about that later this evening, after detouring from my drive back to Detroit to visit a Delhi friend.  She had surprisingly moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, while I was re-acclimatizing in Boston.  We ate dal and chocolate, drank tea, and swapped stories of high altitude climbing between bouts of laughter.  I thought: Here I am celebrating one country, reminiscing about another, and about to move to a third in three days.  Would I have foreseen any of this nine years ago?

They say being an ex-pat is difficult because assimilating into a new culture can rip away your roots.  I don't know if that's true.  Everywhere I go I bump into memories of places I've called home, be it Indiana, Massachusetts, Detroit, Denver, or Delhi.  At the same time, no matter where I am, I was born American, and for better or for worse I represent my country to the rest of the world. That's the point behind going abroad in the first place: being able to sit down with a new friend and say, Let me tell you where I came from . . .

The drive through Indiana