Transatlantic

I leave Portugal tomorrow. Everyone keeps saying that I'll be back, and there's a good chance I will be. But there's still a melancholy in departures, however timely they may be. I cried a little when I woke up this morning, and got misty again at the end of lunch with Jose and Fatima and Victor and Sandra. Now, I'm feeling calm, secure. A little sad, but ready.

It's been quite a month. Lots of highs, some lows. Lots of laziness and recharging. A bit of reflection, though there might have been more. Lots of laughter, my fair share of tears. And did I mention the food? Because there's been a lot of food.

Tomorrow I hop on a plane back to London. I'll be there for less than 48 hours before I'm back at the airport to fly to Berlin. I'll spend four days there with Baerbel, then it's back to London for a full week. And then home! Minneapolis!

I've been thinking a lot about my imminent arrival home. It will be so good for me to reconnect with that place, with my family and friends there. I think it will help me to better understand what my next step should be. Which city or town I'll lay claim to as my newest address. Whether it's stateside or abroad.

It was incredible to watch the election unfold from a living room in Esmoriz, Portugal. Martha and Diogo were both in bed by four, and it was only Aram and I on the couch when he came out to make that speech, both of us rapt, tears streaming down my cheeks.

I've been thinking about my relationship to America, and my relationship with being American. How the first time I properly went abroad on my own was in the summer of 2002, and I ended up raging against Bush and his policies to an Australian named Martin in the basement bar of one Hostel Aphrodite in Athens. How time spent in Uganda made me recalibrate what it meant to be an American in the world - how they saw it as a badge of honour, and a mark of pride. The evolution of my intonation when asked where I was from - how I used to mumble "the States", or tack on an "unfortunately", and pull a face, and in the past months have said it as a statement, clearly. How in the last year I've begun to own my origins. And how this last election has given me renewed pride, excitement, a new outlook on the position of myself and my country in the world. It's my country, America. How wonderful to finally be able to say that with pride.

And Portugal's a pretty special place, too.