The biggest "aha" from what I wrote the other day is this: I have been more responsible than anyone for maintaining a split down my middle. When I've been in England, I have done everything possible to "fit in" and not seem American. Oh sure, the minute I open my mouth, it's evident that I am a North American, but in every other respect, I have tried to disappear. I've tried to be relatively quiet, unobtrusive, colorless. In my encounters with the church music or academic worlds over there, I have tried mightily not to be too enthusiastic or self-revealing, because those things inevitably seemed to be conversation-enders. I've allowed myself to be corrected ("That's not how we say it") and subtly molded into a less outgoing, less visible presence. And I've liked that. I've liked walking down the street like any other middle-aged British woman, carrying my bags of groceries. I've liked people coming up to me on the street asking directions because they assume I'm local. It has always been somewhat of a relief to be in a more constrained, "civilized" milieu. My more independent/powerful/lively/vocal self didn't just take a back seat, she would almost dissolve entirely into the ether. The whole New Age/new spirituality thing is relatively nonexistent over there. A few years ago, I went into Cambridge's main bookstore, Heffers, and asked for their New Age Spirituality section. The clerk looked blankly at me, and walked me over to a shelf where there were, like, three books total. In an American bookstore, there might be three or four entire bookshelves.
Then, in America, how to be the more scholarly/restrained/mystic/England- and English church music-loving me? She has been literally and figuratively a ghost on the landscape. I might have fit in a bit if I had pursued a PhD and entered university teaching. But I just didn't understand back then that I might be good at that or that it was an option. And today there are a few churches in the US where I might be able to sing the music I love at a reasonably high level, but right now, I'm too exhausted to search them out and move to yet another new part of the country. Overall, over here, I've focused on a more outgoing, more "artsy," more New Age-y, more feminist "me," a "me" more rooted in the future, not the past. Virtually none of my women friends speak the language of choral evensong, so, not being able to figure out how to mesh these two contrasting worlds, I've left it out of the conversation entirely.
There is no doubt in my mind that the only place I'll ever fully feel at home, and in the milieu where I'm likely to thrive, is England. I need the possibility of daily choral evensong in my life, period. However, if I didn't understand it before, I understand it now. From this point forward, I can only go back for any length of time once I am willing to bring my most powerful, outgoing self with me. I have to proudly embrace my American energy on that soil, and bring my whole crazy story with me. And I'll only find happiness and wholeness in the meantime once I find a way to express my English side more effectively, even if it is through artwork or some other unexpected medium. I can no longer keep that form of beauty at arm's length in my American life because of the fear that if I get too rooted, I'll never get home. Because I think that's the crux of it all, right there. Fear.
I am the one who needs to dismantle this painful wall, one stone at a time. No one else can do it for me.
