I grew up in the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state where there mountains, rain forests, and the ice cold sea to contain me. When I was a young woman I met a British ex-pat working for a US company and eventually married him. To paraphrase what David Sedaris once said to explain how he ended up living in France, “You meet a man, you give up a little control and you end up eating a different part of the pig.”
In 2012 my husband (and our then two young kids) decided to give up life in Seattle and move to the wilds of Cornwall (in southwestern England) -near where he grew up. A trial year has turned into nearly eight. In that time so much has changed about the landscape of Britain, Europe and the world. While the chaos swirls about I do freelance work in the world of social media and copy-writing, and I wrote my first book about food, life and imaginary living. (My very lovely agent Emily Sweet is submitting it.)
To be an ex-pat now is so very different from what it was ten or twenty years ago. I live in a tiny village around a lot of sheep, and farmers whose ancestors have worked the same land for over 1,000 years, while I also remain so connected to a world of communication which moves at lightning speed. It is sort of like hopping between a freeway without a speed limit, and one of those narrow country lanes that meander. People talk about being a global citizen and I didn’t really understand it and feel it until I came to live here in Europe and saw how multi-faceted my identity could become. As I always tell people I have one foot in sea and one on land. (and I still miss the mountains of home.)