Writing Lab: Of Late I Think of Germany

When it comes to my identity as a person, it's probably fair to say that I don't necessarily consider myself to have one at all. At least not in the same way I feel other people do. I'm not a down comforter or a wool blanket. I feel more like a patchwork quilt -- something that's quite literally made of very random bits all stitched together to create something else that is motley by definition.

For one thing, I'm very mixed ethnically. (My dad is African American and Blackfoot Indian. My mom is of Irish and Scottish descent.) My parents are two very different colors and are very obviously from different ethnic backgrounds. However, my brother and I were sort of raised to see ourselves as colorless -- just "American" without any further elaboration.

Ethnicity and culture were not concepts that were celebrated in our home the way they were in other people's households. I think the desired effect was for the two of us to grow up seeing ourselves as belonging everywhere and with everyone. I can't speak for my brother, but I think the opposite happened to me. Culturally speaking, I felt more like I belonged nowhere and around nobody, especially since I look so racially ambiguous that it's not immediately obvious to most people what my background might be. I'm clearly not white, but I confuse people. If they really want to know, they have to ask (and they always ask).

Since we were military, we moved a lot as well, so that made it difficult to form lasting connections with places or with other people. I don't really consider myself to have a hometown in any real sense and I don't have friendships that go all the way back to kindergarten or anything. Instead of being a person with clear roots and a cultural identity -- the usual things that dictate which foods make you feel the most nostalgic and rooted -- I feel like I'm lots of things all at the same time. Both everything and nothing all at once, so I suppose my personal "time travel" foods are chosen according to a different logic.

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Writing Lab: New Traditions Have a Way of Sneaking Up on You

It occurs to me that I picked the strangest possible month to start participating in one of BlogHer's post-a-day challenges. As anyone that's read my responses to any of the other prompts is probably figuring out, I tend to feel like a fish out of water around the holidays.

Despite being on the threshold of middle age, I don't have children, nor do I have really close-knit, lifelong ties to most of my other family members. I don't have a busy social life that finds me entertaining friends (or letting them entertain me) every year either.

All I really have is my relationship with my fiancé. We're not exactly people of means, nor do we connect with many other people around the holidays. We are very much used to being a team of two at this point and when I picture holiday traditions, I tend to picture a coming together with lots of other people, particularly family. That picture doesn't really apply to our life as we know it, so for a long time, I didn't think the word "tradition" applied to anything we liked to do either. That said, I actually like how these prompts are challenging me to take a closer look at that point of view and reevaluate a few things. I'm beginning to realize that that's something I really needed to do.

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Writing Lab: On Traditions, Family, and Filling the Void

I don't actually have children, nor have I ever wanted any. I've never developed even a hint of a maternal instinct or thought I would make a good mother. That said, I guess I'm realizing I've never really thought about anything to do with the holidays (or life in general) from that particular angle -- what it would all look like as one of the heads of a family.

I've never daydreamed about having someone to mentor and teach things to someday. I've never wondered what it would be like to have somebody else to inherit my traditions and keep them alive after I'm gone. I have no idea if it's odd for a 39-year-old woman to literally never have considered those things, but there it is just the same.

Seth has three children from his previous marriage. Back when we first got together, I assumed that sooner or later I would wind up developing some form of stepmother relationship with them at some point. But they're older now and seem to have little to no interest in either of us, so at this point, I pretty much just take it for granted that such relationships weren't part of God's plan for me. It's not even something that bothers me. It seldom to never crosses my mind and I don't feel like anything is missing from my life because I'm not really a parent in any capacity. It just is what it is like a lot of things in life.

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