from the altiplano to the english moor, amazonia to phnom penh, i’ve grown accustomed to considering myself a man without one land.  in the microcosm of world travel, under the shifting lights of foreign suns, we learn to view both the world and ourselves through others’ eyes.  ambassador, trespasser, guest, or infidel: we mold to the images our hosts or fellow vagabonds provide.

and so it comes as no surprise to me that in these last three years i’ve thought of myself increasingly less as an american.  i’m from california, sure.  i’m english-speaking.  westerner.  but i bend my accent to my surroundings, shun dialect and slang with foreign friends, and do my utmost to conform to each new land.

i live in germany.  ich spreche Deutsch.  i even dream in german, now, and it’s perhaps this final shift that’s made things clear: ich bin doch Amerikaner.

it’s not my running battle against german cases.  it’s certainly not my californian tan.  i may think in german, but i still think american.

even without an accent, i’d still say and do things that no self-respecting german man would dare.  my mind moves with open highways, rolling mountains, and tracks of the western rail.  success to me is my side of the mountain: manifesting freedom from a wild and rugged land.  my ambitions surge past the sensibilities of old europe.  my true convictions sit hard in my gut, unmoved by tradition, opposition, or set plan.  plans?  zee germans can outdo me with efficiency, but i’ll break plans and hold my own with ingenuity and adamantine drive.  more than anything else, i am a self-made man.

returning with the summer to my Heimat, i’ve discovered something rare.  when golden chaparral rolls by outside my windows or towering pillars of tall redwoods arch above my bed, my spirit swells.  this land i’ve wanted my whole life to flee is part of me.  the stones of my america are marrow, my arms extend from sea to shining summit, and my heart breaks to the whine of steel guitars.

that identity i’ve hid so long in anonymity has burgeoned with the time.  my ambitions point me eastward, but my boots remain in california’s sand.  true, my perspective differs now from that of my corn-fed brethren, but we still view this world from the same wagon train.  it’s been a startling realization after years on foreign soil, but as i set my sites back on europa, i see my destination for the first time free from doubt: under the long shadow of purple mountains and deep waves of amber grain.