The other day, I wrote a piece for The National, the English-language newspaper about “home,” or more exactly, the somewhat confused state of being multiply “homed.” When we got back to Abu Dhabi after our time in New York this winter, I had the comforting, and somewhat disconcerting, sense that we were back “home,” even though we haven’t lived here for very long and even though most of the people we love in the world are back in the States.
The morning my article was due to come out in the paper, Caleb came in to wake me up in the morning. (Brief “I’m so lucky” sidebar: my kids wake themselves up in the morning a little bit before six, Caleb comes in to give me a kiss and tell me it’s “wake-up time,” Liam takes a shower, they get dressed, assemble their bags, play their computers, wait for the housekeeper me to make breakfast.) He gave me my “wake-up” kiss and perched on the side of my bed.
First words out of his mouth? “When are we moving back to New York?”
Not all of us, I guess, have quite decided that we are “home.”
I’ve always wanted to live overseas, or at least visit. I will not embarrass myself by saying how few times I’ve left the U.S., but I’m on a mission to not have my kids be able to say the same.
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Living overseas is cool in some ways and then in other ways, it’s just your life, in a different place. And Caleb, who was only six, has sort of legend-ized his life in New York; he doesn’t remember it clearly but it was PERFECT nevertheless. (He’s wrong, just fyi).
I am so jealous your kids do that.
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I feel very lucky about our morning routines; it’s the upside of having a 12 year old who is wound tighter than Claire Danes on “Homeland.”
Congrats on your piece! Home is where your stuff is.
Isn’t that how the maxim goes? 😉
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