Escape from the Old Country

I never had to make one, no sickening weeks by ocean, no waiting for the aerogrammes that gradually ceased to come. Spent the babysitting money on novels, shoes, and movies, yet the neighborhood stayed empty. It had nothing to do with a journey not undertaken, not with dialect, nor with a land that waited to be rediscovered, then rejected. As acid rain collected above the suburban hills, I tried to imagine being nothing, tried to be able to claim, “I have no culture,” and be believed. Yet the land occupies the person even as the semblance of freedom invites a kind of recklessness. Tradition, unobserved, unasked, hangs on tight; ancestors roam into reverie, interfering at the most awkward moments, first flirtations, in doorways and dressing rooms— But of course. Here in America, no one escapes. In the end, each traveler returns to the town where, everyone knew, she hadn’t even been born.