Neither here nor there
2024 marks my fifteenth year as a resident of Australia. I’ve been an Australian citizen since 2017. But I could live in Melbourne fifty years and still never be considered a ‘real’ Australian. As soon as I open my mouth, I am identified as not-from-here, and I’m mostly okay with that. Citizenship as a legal determination, not a cultural designation. The reality is I’m neither/nor. Not Australian, in a formative sense, but in so many practical ways, not American either. America is my origin story, but no longer my experience. I have navigated the entirety of adulthood outside of the United States. I’ve never paid a utility bill or received a significant paycheque in America. I’ve never enrolled a child in school or taken anyone to the GP in America. The fact that I just referred to the family doctor as the GP demonstrates the level of Australian-ness that has permeated my being. Trash is rubbish, thrown in the bin, not the can. I chop veggies on my frustratingly small kitchen bench, not the counter. I ask the children what they need from the chemist; ‘drug store’ now sounds both suspect and vaguely enticing. Cars park in the car park and we walk on the foot path, completely logical phrases yet still interlopers, foreign invaders, like boot for trunk and lift for elevator.
Language is a strange beast. It’s fascinating what gets cast off and what remains fixed in place. When I ‘have a taste’, as my mom would say, for something sweet, I contemplate baking cookies, never biscuits. When speaking to my kindergarten students about ‘sometimes food’ and ‘everyday food’, I reference lollies but the care package confectionery from friends and family is unquestionably candy. At the end of every week, I contemplate the grocery shopping I need to do and tap out a grocery list on my phone. I am quite certain I have never heard an Aussie speak of the grocery store; they are off to the shops. I’ll always and forever be mom to my children, never their mum. A phrase I never considered curious until my Australian ex husband pointed it out was offering to fix someone food— ‘I’ll fix you a sandwich.’ “Food isn’t broken. You don’t fix it”, he said. Tell that to Black folks. Go to any Black family celebration in the States and there will be an auntie who offers to fix you a plate to take home when you leave.
I trace direct links from my regularly used American vocabulary to the idylls of childhood and more specifically, food. Counting and categorising Halloween candy after a night of trick-or-treating in the brisk Ohio autumn; my dad, as chaperone, would collect his candy ‘tax’ from the spoils. Sweeping the crumbs of my grandmother’s mince pie and Mexican wedding cake cookies from my mouth in the technicolour flicker of Christmas lights, Billie and Ella crooning in the background. Tracking the IGA bag boy as he swiftly gathers groceries from the conveyor belt, brown-bagging the treats I’d eyed for later: Disney popsicles, Little Debbie snack cakes and Capri Sun Pacific Coolers.
The other day my daughter told me she doesn’t hear my accent anymore. I get it; I rarely register the accents of my Australian friends and colleagues nowadays either. What is familiar is no longer exceptional. And yet when talking with my children, I occasionally experience a sort of out-of-body experience: hearing the voices of the children I gave birth to, and recognising that they sound nothing like mine.
We adapt to our environment to ensure our survival; but adaptation is not assimilation. In other words, you can take the girl out of Ohio, but you can’t [completely] take Ohio out of the girl. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Unsplash image of a Fred Meyer grocery store by Peter Bond
I deeply miss shopping in American grocery stores. They are wondrous places.
The Takeaway:
We absorb our environment, for better or worse.
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Australians are notorious word shorteners. Any word/name/place is fair game, whether you like it or not. Lauren = Lozza. This is not a nickname I would have ever chosen. If you value my friendship, do not call me Lozza.
