Being an International

My daughter is packing to go to Sweden for a month to take an intensive Swedish course. This will be the sixth country she has lived in from a month to several years. They are:

• US
• Germany
• Switzerland
• France
• Scotland

She speaks two languages fluently and hopefully will be functional in Swedish by late autumn.

I've lived in six countries anything from a month to decades:

• US
• Germany
• France
• Switzerland
• Ireland
• Scotland

I speak French and English and am working on getting my German back to where it was long ago.

Something happens when one lives in more than one country. It becomes okay to open windows differently, line up or not for entrance to anything, shake hands or not, kiss on one, two, three cheeks, keep your hand in your lap at dinner or don't. Take off your shoes when you enter a house, expect public transportation to be faster and better than your car, have universal health care.

These are tiny examples of things that one finds different when countries change, but more important they are symbolic of different life styles which eliminates absolutes forever. I remember years ago being asked why I lived in Europe. I replied, "universal health care." The person responded "No country could afford that." Every other industrial country except the U.S. does. Living in other places increases knowledge of the world.

During my citizenship hearing for Switzerland, I was asked if I would give up my American citizenship. I replied "no" although later I had little choice if I wanted to stay in Switzerland forever thanks to FATCA and the American pressure on banks all over the world. It became a choice between my birth country and a bank account. www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4N9aW5NdE4

I explained that if I were a plant the roots closest would be American or maybe even New England Yankee. But after moving to Switzerland, the plant continued to grow and put down longer roots. If the new roots were cut off, the plant would die because the plant now needed deep roots. And if you cut off the roots that had grown after leaving the U.S., the plant would die because it needed the longer roots to survive now that it was bigger.

I am thrilled to be Swiss, but I realize that I can never be 100% Swiss. Part of me will always be American and because I've spent so much time in Germany and France, I've absorbed some of their cultures. And everywhere else I've lived I've taken some things into my heart soul while shaking my head at some cultural idiosyncrasies.

I will never truly belong in any of the places I've lived.

That's all right.

Over all, I think of myself as an international with a Swiss passport.