I stand outside my apartment complex, waiting for my Lyft driver, bags packed and ready for a week-long conference in Chicago.
David pulls up in a silver, 2010 Kia Forte, as promised. He eyes my suitcase. "Going home?" he asks?
"No," I shake my head, "Going away."
He looks confused. "Well you aren't from here," he pushes, "Are you?"
"I'm not," is my reticent reply.
"You look slavic." No social grace. "Where are you from?"
It's one of my least favorite questions. Not because I'm afraid I'll be racially profiled, or because of my white, non-slavic ancestors' history of racial profiling. It's because I'm not really from anywhere. The answer is kind of a long story. Which is usually what I say--
"It's kind of a long story," I reply, wishing now that I'd sat in the back seat.
I could tell him I'm from Muster, IN, the place I was born. Or I could say Guelph, Ontario, the place my parents live. I could tell him my family is Dutch, that they're American, or that they're Canadian. I could reply with Grand Rapids, Michigan, and it would be just as true as saying Telkwa, British Columbia.
What I'm really most afraid of is that in cherry picking my response, I'll haphazardly land on a place we share, and ultimately be exposed as a fraud. "You're not a real ___________," he'll say. And he'll be right, in part.
This experience--one of transience, of wandering--is becoming increasingly commonplace. We're a nomadic generation, millennials, perpetually on the move.
It used to make me sad, my homelessness. I used to long for a simple answer: "I'm from Boston," or "I'm from Phoenix." I wished for cousins and childhood friends, people I'd grown up with, who'd been there for my bad haircuts and first dates.
I'm realizing now that what I got instead might be equally as good, if not entirely different.
Fast forward six days. I'm standing outside the Memphis International Airport, waiting for my Lyft driver, bags full of wrinkled slacks and stolen, travel-size shampoos. Ilya pulls up in a white, 2014 Toyota Prius, as promised.
"Where are you from?" he asks in a thick, Russian accent.
"My family is Dutch," I reply, feeling generous.
"Je spreek Nederlands?" he asks.
"Een klein beetje, maar niet zo goed."
"Ik ook," He smiles, and for a second, we're both a little bit at home.
