August 30, 2011

Bicontinental Drift -- return to the continent -- but which one?


Bicontinental.  Sounds glamorous, flashy, all jet-setty.  But there's a real kicker.     

I adore flying across the Atlantic, but it can be painful:  it involves the flip of my dual self. Heads I'm here, tails I'm there.  Heads I'm there, tails I'm here.  However it's done they are two sides of the same coin.
And that coin is me.
When the flight takes off from Cointrin I can be emotional.  When the Swiss Airbus turns and dips over the mountains and heads west toward America I'm really spinning.

The reality is I live in Ferney-Voltaire, just outside the tiny metropolis of Geneva. I'm neither French nor Swiss. I vote for the President of the United States.  Most family members and close friends live in the US. When I'm there it feels like home, when I'm in Ferney I'm already planning my next trip over.   
The US is the world for me, ça foisonne, ça grouille!
But I love it here--- I would hate to give it up.
So here I am, straddling two continents and needing both.  I'm not alone--it's the twenty-first century and we are so very mobile. Roots are perhaps easier to pull up, but not without pain. 

Let's hear it for double heimatschmerz.