where are you from?

I really hate this question. Every time I meet a new person it's inevitable though that they will ask. I have several pat answers:

Usually I answer with the last place that I've lived. Hence, in my life I've said: "The Bay Area", "Boston", "Israel", "LA", "Wisconsin", "Kansas City" and "Cleveland". I feel no particular connection of being from any of those particular places. I feel defined by none of them and all of them. It's easiest when you are on vacation, say in Hawaii or something, staying at a hotel so it is obvious so no one is actually from that hotel. Then you are perfectly in your rights to answer the place that you live, in fact that is what you are supposed to answer. I however, tend to answer the question that way all of the time.

I have good friends, really dear friends, who I'm sure have no idea where I actually lived as a child. (Isn't that what the question really means?) When we first met and made it through the inevitable small talk, I answered the dreaded question and we were able to move on. We talk about our kids, our daily lives, even our longings and great disappointments, but the question of place does not necessarily come up again.

Of course I do occasionally get in trouble using the "vacation method" to answer The Question. One time in particular happened, ironically enough, while on vacation. This is when I was living in Israel on a six month study program in Arad. Some friends and I were staying at a Youth Hostel in Jerusalem for the weekend. "Where are you guys from?" asked our roommates. "Arad" I answered. My friends stared at me open-mouthed. Technically the answer was correct. This is where we had come from. Also, this is the only place that all four of us were indeed from. But my friends did not see it that way. "Upstate New York", "LA", "Berkley" they answered. Everyone looked at me. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't go through my life history with these people I would be spending exactly one night with. "Arad" I repeated and fled to the bathroom.

Later that night my friends called me on my "method". The Question is an attempt to get to know a person, to make a connection they told me. By dodging it you are denying people access to who you are. It is unfriendly and exists outside the rules of social norms. My friends loved me and knew me very well. They are right, but still, I have no good answer.

So, where am I from? I was born in New Haven Connecticut. At age 6 months my parents moved my brothers and sister and I to Kansas City for 7 more months where we lived with my grandparents. We were out of money and my parents marriage was hanging on by an absolute thread. My dad took a job as an associate rabbi at the synagogue where my mom grew up and they worked on trying to love each other and us while living with my grandparents. Not an easy task. Ma and Grandpa were not easy to live with. Ma cooked tuna and noodles in some variety most nights and they both had a really hard time hiding the fact that they really hated my dad. The feeling was mutual. Shortly after my first birthday we moved to Cleveland.

We lived in Cleveland Heights where my dad became the local Hillel rabbi, I attended the Agnon Jewish Day School, and Beth Phil and Jon attended Milliken Jr. High and Heights High School. My first memories are of living in Cleveland. We lived in a mixed neighborhood where many of our neighbors were black and most of them were mean. I took the bus to school and forgot to get off on the first day of Kindergarten. Eventually we moved to a nicer neighborhood with white catholic neighbors who had lemonade stands and walked with us down to Bialy's Bagels. Many of my school friends lived in our new neighborhood and we spent the summers riding our bikes down to the public pool and swirling unfrozen yogurt on the front stoop of Bialy's.

In Cleveland my parents got divorced, twice. The second time (kind of like the destruction of the Temple) was permanent. My dad moved to Washington DC and married the secretary of his last synagogue, Jean. Beth went to college and so did Phil, and eventually so did Jon. My mom went back to work full time. I came home every day after school and drank grape soda and watched the Brady Bunch. She and I settled into a kind of shy routine of being the only ones left in our house. I missed my dad and my brothers and sister but I loved having mom all to myself.

I found out about our move in a round about way. I was riding my bike through Cedar Center where I ran into the vice principal of Agnon. She told me that they would miss me next year but that she hoped we would enjoy Kansas City. What?! I sped home and mom confirmed that it was true. We were moving to Kansas City. She needed the support of her parents and large family. There was a job waiting for her at Sealy, my grandfather's business. All of her best friends still lived there. This seemed irrelevant to me as all of my best friends, particularly Leslie and Tania lived in Cleveland.

It turns out I was not alone in not wanting to move. Beth and Phil were against it. No one liked Kansas City. My grandparents were difficult and we really hated visiting them. Now we would be living there again. Jon was furious. A Sophomore at Penn, us moving meant he would have to spend all of his breaks and perhaps summers too in Kansas City. The thing is though, is that none of them were going to live there. Only me and mom. I didn't want to go.

Once again for the first seven months we lived with Ma and Grandpa. I slept on the fold out couch in Grandpa's office while mom slept in what was known as "David's room", or her younger brother's room who of course now had his own house and life. Ma would drive carpool from the Hebrew Academy while mom went to work. None of the other moms worked, there was no bus, and all of the kids in my class had known each other since Kindergarten. They were mean.

When we finally found our own house (Townhouse) I was finally able to take the bus to Nallwood Junior High and breath a little. I found a few friends. The 80's began and life in the suburbs was okay. Really, just okay. I never felt like myself in Kansas City. Beth, Phil and Jon complained incessantly whenever they came to visit. I longed to live with Dad and Jean in Texas, or LA or San Francisco but I couldn't leave mom by herself. I did though when I graduated High School.

I loved College. Beloit Wisconsin! The best thing about it was that it wasn't Kansas City and you could walk everywhere, and people for the most part (at College at least) were not blond and knew that the world was big. Also, I didn't at all have to try to fit into the suburban Kansas City suburban girl I could never be. I could breath again. My ten year old self on a bicycle was reborn.

Except then I went to Israel and remembered that I was also Jewish. Connected to the land. Furiously connected in a way that I could never break. Also in love with a boy from LA.

I really loved LA. I fell out of love with the boy and in love with the city. It was warm and sunny and beautiful nearly every day. I spent hours on my bike. Also running and skating and dancing. I learned about pad thai, and sushi, and grande nonfat lattes. I learned to spot movie stars at the local trader joe's and bought a bright red car. I became a fairly good teacher. But the land, the connection. The furious connection. I moved back to Israel.

Arad was college again but with the Judaism, the land, the language. It was heaven. Tel Aviv was not. It was crowded and smelly and way too hot. I missed being a teacher. I missed LA. I missed Judaism. I missed Mom. The connection to the land was still furiously there. I knew I would have to live with it, but I'd have to live with it away from the land itself. I couldn't live without Jeff.

Jeff is definitively and absolutely from Boston. We moved there. It was cold. Really cold. The people there were mean. I went to graduate school and Jeff got a job and we got married. We lived in two different apartments and hosted wonderful potluck Shabbat dinners with my friends from graduate school. We almost bought a house. But really it was too cold. Also, Mom died. Terribly and tragically but she was gone. I couldn't stay in the place that I lived in when she died. I physically couldn't do it. We moved to the Bay Area.

We lived there for five years and went on long and magical bike rides. We visited Israel as tourists and took a bike trip through Tuscany. The weather was sunny and warm although sometimes it rained. We lived in a cocoon built for two. We bought a house and got really caught up in the "dot com" world. We had two children and enlarged our cocoon to fit three and then four. Then the world collapsed. The Twin Towers, my Dad, and the economy. There was no way for us to stay there.

Now we live in Portland. Life here is paradise. It really is. I wake up nearly every day happy. Where you live is hugely important. Mira and Eli are from Portland. I am hoping that they can answer The Question with as much ease as their father. After all, when people ask me where I'm from, I smile and say "Portland".