Back in The Shire

Bonjour, mes amis! Here we are again. Gearing up for another season abroad, this time in France. I'll be in the city Le Mans, which is to the southeast of Paris and about an hour travel time by high speed train. The city is famous for having a sports car race called the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in which cars go fast in a circle without stopping for twenty-four hours straight. This is beyond ironic because I've been in Indianapolis, my hometown, since I got back from Colombia, which is also famous for a race: The Indy 500.

In a way, I've always felt a bit like Bilbo Baggins and Indiana is The Shire. It's a place whose people, like the Hobbits, often don't leave. They are born here, they stay, sometimes they go away, but then they often return. And when they do go, they don't go too far: Chicago, Cincinnati, someplace like that. And many of them, also like Hobbits, are quite content in that. They don't need to leave; they're perfectly fine being here, living their lives day to day, raising families, and growing old. But there are a few of us, the Bagginses of the bunch, that are born with a desire to go out and see the world, to see how far we can go, and it's only a matter of time before our destiny catalyzes it and off we go, off to have adventures, and sometimes write about them.... and apparently also dabble in translating "several works from the Elvish." (Or Spanish or French or Japanese or whatever, right?)

When I left Indiana, over eleven years ago, I thought I'd never return beyond a visit here and there. For a long time, I thought I'd stay in New York forever. But one day, I realized it was time to go, even if I didn't know exactly where to, and that's what I've been trying to figure out ever since. To my surprise, it has taken me back here, where, I guess you could say, it all began.

I'm not really as happy here as I had secretly hoped I would be. Though I grew up here, coming back was almost like going to a new place. I had, blessedly, forgotten most of my childhood, and what I can remember was all confined to just a small corner of the city. So when I got off the plan at Indianapolis International Airport, it was as if I were arriving in a new place. Whenever I go somewhere new, I always hope I'll land in a place that makes me think, "Yes, I could stay here for a while," but Colombia wasn't that place—though if I ended up in Medellin or Manizales, maybe things would have turned out differently—and Indianapolis isn't that place either.

On top of remembering so little of it, Indianapolis has really developed a lot over the last eleven years. The city is really coming into its own, or at least trying, and the visits I would make here and there allowed me to make and stay in contact with a great group of friends who have really made these three months worth it. People are really happy to see me here, and I'm happy to see them. They ask me about what I saw and did while I was away, and I tell them stories. Sometimes some of them had the chance to visit me, and then we made our own stories. In any case, it's been nice to share my experiences. I've always been motivated in life by the goal of acquiring experiences, like how other people collect bottle caps and thimbles. But it's never been just to have them. It's been to share them. It's why I was in the theatre, why I write, and why I teach: to share the knowledge and experiences I gain in my life. I don't want all of it to disappear when I die. I want it to live on through other people, through the words, through their memories which maybe they might even pass on to others in an unbroken chain through the generations.

But in the end, it just doesn't have the things I need. There's no real language school, except for the one I work at, and enrollment is low enough that many languages are placed on hold, sometimes for up to a year, before a class opens for them. It lacks the multiculturalism and opportunity I got used to in New York and took for granted. Now that I've been almost a year and a half without it, I see how much it was important to me. At least when I'm abroad, even if where I am is pretty homogeneous, like Colombia was, it's still new to me; it's still something I can explore and learn from, whether the things I learn be about them or about myself.

I guess going to France is just the next step of that search though, to find that place where I feel like I belong again, to see if I can find an environment that can help me deal with a certain kind of loneliness I've felt my whole life, which has only become more obvious to myself now that I'm not really from anywhere. How am I supposed to answer that question now? I've been gone from New York too long to really say that's where I'm from, and Indiana's not home; it's just where I was born. So how do I answer that question now?

Or do I just belong to the world now? Yes, I think that's it. I am of the world, and it's time to go back into it once more.