July 5, Pittsfield.
Nothing makes you feel more like a stranger than a national holiday.
Nothing makes you feel more like an outsider than your children growing up to speak a foreign language.
Dylan has started saying words in English, words he picks up from other circus children, and here I am, the least patriotic of French women, cringing at the thought that one day he'll go to school and there complete the process of his immersion in the American culture and idiom. Every mother does it, I imagine, thinking that your children are somehow like you, or should be, when they are somebody entirely different from you, their own person, their own world.
Still, the thought of having my children talk to me in English is hard to swallow, surprisingly enough. I used to think of this country as my own more than France, to feel utterly at home here, surrounded by my American friends, reading in English, dreaming in English, rejoicing in everything American, from the 24-hour diners to the cellophane-wrapped bread.
And then I had kids. Thinking back on this notion of identity, I realized that my belonging was as removed as the profession I'd chosen, a choice not likely coincidental. Photojournalists, and journalists in general, are one step removed from the reality they cover, always, and that's why it fit me so well and I loved being a photojournalist in this country so much.
That's what I slowly came to realize on that long trip over from the coast a few days ago.
I am not am American and I never will be, no matter how much I love it here and how comfortable I sometimes let myself feel. I am not much French either after all those years far away from my own country; as with most expatriates I am of nowhere - and that is not so bad. My children can choose to be of a place, and it will be up to them where that is.
But then if they go to school in this country there is the issue of the pledge of allegiance, and that one three-letter word in there. They'll speak English, Spanish and French fluently, navigate through three different cultures and people, and hopefully many more, but if I can have a say in it they won't swear to a god I don't believe in, much less each and every day with their hand on their heart, no matter how symbolic they tell me it only is. I'll try and teach them to respect all the religions men have so beautifully devised, as I do, and to cherish the good they stand for and inspire us to do (I'll leave the bad for when they're old enough to be disillusioned,) but it will be up to them to have faith when they grow up to think for themselves - and think freely and creatively but always critically, if I have done a good job.
I'll take the flag (after all it's theirs,) but I take the separation of church and state very seriously.
