Being American

I’m an American. Or, at least, I was born in America to American parents and with American brothers and sisters.

But at various times I’m quite convinced that I’m English, a Roman, an Athenian, and an old Hebrew.

I’ve been reading The Once and Future King this week, and this week I’ve been mostly convinced that I’m English. To be honest, I spend most of my days being English anyway. A common language runs deeper than blood, but most of my blood traces back to the British Isles anyway, though I’m not sure to what parts and in what amounts. I can speak American when necessary, but I feel most myself when speaking English.

I’m married to an American, and quite happily so. She doesn’t care a bit for poetry, and isn’t remotely interested in the King Arthur or Robin Hood stories. When I read about King Arthur, I feel as if I’m back home in a childhood land I’d nearly forgotten, and when a line of Latin or old English gets quoted I can almost remember being there. I’m quite sure that the land of my grandfather’s grandfather’s was the sort of place that was inhabited by the “old people,” when there were wolves in savage forests and fairies and spells and witches. Then there were valleys and moors and marshes where not even the Latin language, let alone the English one, had been heard. Moonlight meant something and there were dragons—not like the Harry Potter sort, but what you might call dracones—and all sorts of nearly human people like Merlin who lived in places like Lothian and Avalon and are dimly remembered in Shakespeare.

But I’ve never been to those lands, and as I write this I’m sitting in an American city under fluorescent lights with gas heat. The concrete building I’m writing from has never been heated with a wood fire, and all the efforts of winter have been scraped and salted off its sidewalks. All the land around it has been paved over to accommodate automobiles, and there are no songs or poems about anything notable ever happening here. No one sleeps in this building, and there are never children or animals allowed nearby. No king has ever passed through this street, and no king has ever held this land. It’s sort of sad, really.

There are plenty of reasons why I’m glad to be an American, and listening to Copland 3 is one of them. I’m also proud whenever I go to the dentist, whenever I see snow on the fields of my parent’s house, whenever I visit Lake Ontario, and whenever I read the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. But I think I need some more reasons. So fire away—what things make you feel American and happy to be so?

In the meantime, I’ll be in Camelot.