Take Me Home, James

A few days ago, I left home in Canada to come home... to France. Sort of.

As almost everyone with even a smattering of French knows, there is no equivalent word in the land of Baudelaire, baguettes and bisous sur la joue for 'home'. Although foyer seems to come close, it is clinical in its lack of warmth and inclusion, and while the casual chez moi is widely understood to mean the physical structure where one lives, or even the feeling of being in a welcoming environment, it does not have the profound significance of a place where one truly belongs. That such a place might be where a childhood was spent, where independence flourished and new roots took hold, or some enveloping comfort was found resists generalization.

When I am asked where my home is, I avoid the automatism of answering that it is Canada. That isn't where I spend most of my time, and it isn't where I have invested my emotional life as half of a committed couple. But that's where I feel most at ease: where customs and language are familiar, where I know how to read the body language, where I have a long history and a lot of people I love live. If the question is put to me in the company of my favourite Belgian, I hesitate to discourage him from believing that I am just as at home here in France with him, but the truth is, if it weren't for love, I wouldn't be here.

Every emigrant experiences loss. For some, it is personal and terrible, but in even the most wished-for, non-conflict-driven emigrant experience there is the potential of loss of cultural belonging, of linguistic ease, of meaningful community contact and of shared history. Little wonder that, in countries of significant immigration, cultural enclaves form and solidify in the inestimable comfort of familiarity. In the region of southern France where I live there are clubs for almost every nationality, and some new residents come here simply to enjoy the climate and geography in the company of their own kind, without any intention to assimilate into local life or learn the language beyond the basics.

This is my second experience at living as an immigrant – both times in the same country – and I continue to have difficulty establishing this lovely place as my home. The fact that my children are in that other place is certainly a factor, but my first time around they were here with me – all of them French-born – and I was still not able to settle. Maybe it's because I'm female, and my attachment to place and community of origin is harder to sever; many men do not develop the close friendships that are so important to women's sense of community and I've heard more than one man say that his home is just where he happens to be. According to the highly unscientific survey I have conducted of ex-patriates over my fourteen-odd years in France, men have an easier time of adapting to a new place, particularly if the motivation for their relocation is professional. For many women, including me, the best we can do is to consider our adopted country/city/state/province a 'home away from home', which seems a little unconvincing.

If I were to furnish the 'inner home' that William Bridges suggests in his book 'Transitions' is the ideal place to live, and of which I recently read at SpitandBalingWire (a soon-to-be émigrée herself) then perhaps I'd feel more grounded. But how can I do that? I appreciate each 'home' for very different reasons, and don't spend my time pining for what I don't have, at least not too often, but I can't seem to get to the point where I am truly chez moi.

 My admiration for forward-looking immigrants who leave familiarity behind and determine to lay down roots and history in a new country is boundless. In blogs that I have come across, there are some notable examples of people who have thrown appreciative arms around a culture, language and way of life entirely different than what they previously knew. Friko, Owen and a Cuban in London are long-time, well-integrated ex-patriates and Ginnie is an intrepid American sexagenarian who took up residence in Holland a month ago.

When my plane touched down in Nice last Monday, I wanted to feel a kind of settling, a rightness that told me I was where I should be, but for as long as my life straddles an ocean, I doubt that I will feel that fully in either place. But it occurred to me before I left Canada this time that although my life can hardly be called nomadic, I have something in common with that way of life. Despite their transience, nomads maintain cultural and affective ties by travelling in communities, and since I began to write in this space, the friends I have made come with me wherever I go.