Leaving the U.S.

I wasn’t born there but lived there from the age of 9, for 25 years, through young (independent, female, self-supporting) adulthood. I purposefully never became a U.S. citizen but carefully maintained my Alien’s Card and my British nationality, knowing that at some point I would have had enough and would emigrate to a Commonwealth nation. I thought it would be New Zealand, but it ended up being a part of Canada that looks a lot like New Zealand, and had the added benefit of allowing me to remain on the same continent as my family and the close friends I’d gained over 25 years.

I lived in Miami for 11 years — easily the most violent place I ever lived — then San Francisco for 10 years, which was comparatively like experiencing a daily state of Nirvana. Then I made my home in NYC for a few years before coming to Western Canada, via Alaska. In New York, I moved around lower Manhattan, living for brief periods on the Lower East Side, in Chelsea, Tribeca and SoHo. I worked at Brown, Wood, Ivy, Mitchell and Petty Partners at Law, occupying the 53rd, 57th and 58th floors of the North Tower, with other artists and writers who happened to be able to spell and who peopled the proof-reading pools. We worked all hours on rush contracts, happily pulling in double time or time-and-a-half over the weekends. Many of them still worked there years later, on 9–11–2001. Miraculously, not a one of them was lost; the entire staff of Brown, Wood who were at work that day got out alive.

I’ve spent a lot of time — many summers and adult sojourns — in New England — Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont. I’ve literally spent time in every one of the continental United States. I’ve seen so, so many faces of the nation. And I love it. But it breaks my heart. And I always knew I couldn’t stay.