I've got a whole bunch of identities I've worn like skin over the years. I am a New Englander, a Californian, a gay American, a brother, son and grandson, a man married to another man, a German-American, a member of the extended Johnston clan of Nova Scotia, a dog lover, a professor emeritus.
I wear these identities with pride. They ground me and provide me with a sense of security. I know who I am and where I come from.
I have had other identities in the past, some of which mattered for a brief time such as member of the Class of 1958 (the Gilbert School in Winsted, Connecticut) and the Class of 1962 (Middlebury College). Others, like my religious identities - Baptist, Congregationalist, Lutheran, I grew out of and away from. My friend Frank likes to refer to me as "flaquito" (skinny), an affectionate reminder that I spent my early years with less weight on my bones. In Japan I was identified as a "gaijin," an "outside person," a term that got under my skin the first few years I lived there.
I love it when I see others wearing their identities with pride. I grew up in a small town full of Italian immigrants, and watching them live life loud and filled with affection used to make me wish I was Italian.
And in more recent years, I've observed the same kind of relationships among Mexican families and Jewish families. Not as loud, maybe, but as affectionate.
One could do worse than grow up in a family that revels in its roots.
I don't want to shed any of my long-lasting identities. I want forever to remain a dog-lover. But I wouldn't mind - at least for a time - living life as an Ashkenazi American Jew, particularly if I had a father who was a cantor:
No comments:
Post a Comment