A week or so ago we were attending a small musical performance not far from our seasonal rental cottage on St. John. As entertainers often do to generate repoire and energy with their audience, the main singer asks where people are from.
He goes around the courtyard asking the short term tourists where they’re visiting from – Virginia, Maine, Ohio.
Then he comes around to us. We look at each other, considering which reply we’ll give.. this time.
We shrug and point to the mountain behind us.
But it’s not a completely accurate answer.
Sure, for right now – we’re staying on St. John. But we’re not really locals – we know we’re moving on come spring to wherever our next destination might be. So we’re not making commitments to the local community beyond our intended stay.
And we’re not really tourists or visitors – we’re functioning and interacting with day-to-day life here. We deal with refilling propane tanks and drinking water, know where to park in town, deal with vehicle inspections, have a local mailing address and get a local’s discount.
Most folks when they travel have a home, somewhere they identify with as ‘living’ at, somewhere they will return to when their trip is over. Answering the ‘where are you from?’ question has a quick concise answer for them. It’s printed on their return ticket.
For us perpetual nomads, there is no easy answer, and we sometimes fumble to find the right words.
How do we sum up that we have no home base – but yet, we’re not homeless. That we’re currently staying down the road, but we’re not just visiting, nor intending to live in the general area long term. That the destination printed on our next ticket is just that, our next destination. And often, that ticket hasn’t even been purchased yet…
We embrace not having a quick and easy answer to the question ‘where are you from?’.
When we travel via RV, and we get asked about where we are from when the RV is in sight, it’s always fun to just point to our little travel trailer. It’s much easier for people to grasp our example of living nomadically when they can physically see wheels serving as the foundation of our home. At that point the ‘where’s home’ question no longer needs to be answered with a city name, or a state.
Staying on St. John as seasonal transients has been an interesting experiment in terminology. It’s kinda meta, actually. As now we’re nomadically living away from our nomadic home on wheels, that we may or may not actually return to.
When asked where we’re from, we commonly will ask in return for a definition of ‘from’.
- Do you mean where our legal address is?
- Do you mean where we’re sleeping tonight?
- Do you mean where we last were and where our RV is parked?
- Do you mean where we grew up?
Folks on St. John are pretty good about understanding seasonal visitors to the island since many folks snowbird down here during the winter and then return ‘home’ come spring. And with a large full time cruising community that moors in the bays of the island, there’s a pretty strong grasp of mobile living here too. So it’s been fairly easy to describe our situation to folks here without causing too much confusion.
But it’s never a quick answer like ‘California’.
We live nowhere. We live everywhere.
Part of being nomadic is embracing this.
If as a Mainer in another location I could answer “A yuh we’re from Away”…. And if you pose as a Local, you could answer the question, “Have you lived here all your life?” … “…Not Yet ” 😉
Do people get offended when you point the RV?
I haven’t detected that any have. They may at first think we’re pulling their leg or something. But it has always opened up a great conversation.
My Mother.
Hahah! You’re too funny, dude 😉
Earth.
Indeed.. that is one of my favorites too 🙂
Interesting post. I find this question to be much like the “so what do you do?” question… I often say “about what?” in a very joking/light way though…
Very true.. I usually go with ‘Anything I like!’. 🙂
I’ve moved and travelled practically my whole life so I know this frustration. I’ve found the easiest way to answer is the one I use now -> I was born in Denmark, but now I’m living in x….at the moment x is our RV (previously it was Hong Kong, or Belgium or wherever else we were at the time). That usually gets the conversation started and then I can “fill in” the gaps as more questions crop up 🙂
I love finding ways to answer the question that invite conversations.. and that’s part of the fumbling sometimes. Trying to determine the personality type of the inquirer, and how open minded they are and really interested. Or, are they just making small talk and want a quick answer?
Thanks for addressing this. We’ve been struggling with the answer for 18 years. We have to size up the situation every time we answer in order to asses how much information they are truly seeking. Typically, even after we answer that we’re from “nowhere and everywhere” and have been touring non-stop for 18 years they still insist “But really, where are you from?” Ugh! We started in San Francisco (sort of) but honestly we spend more time on the East Coast and other places than we do in California. Nice to know others share the frustration.
Sometimes, it is frustrating. But usually it’s a fun way to strike up a conversation. ‘Location’ and ‘Home’ are such defining things for people. And for us nomadic types, we’ve ditched the normal assumptions around that. More often than not, we leave these conversations having left seeds of ideas in people.. and that’s a powerful thing.
Interesting. So where are you really from. This is an interesting question and i know its hard to answer especially having a been on a musical tour for over a 6 year period across the globe. Spent most of my days on a bus that was my address. The thing with a bus is there’s no one place you will find it. Today its here tomorrow its there so for a while i have not really had a address, if you asked me i would say bus!
http://borderless-travel.com
I moved from Calgary, Alberta, Canada to Montreal, Quebec, Canada via Burning Man in 2007. I didn’t have an apartment yet in Montreal, and my apartment in Calgary wasn’t mine anymore. When asked where I lived I usually just pointed at the car since it contained all my worldly possessions. When I was on playa I pointed at the car AND the tent.
Now when people ask I tell them I split my time between Montreal and San Francisco. Over the next two years that might get even more confusing since I’d love to find some housesitting or home swapping opportunities. So yeah, I get it, though you guys certainly are the extreme and extremely inspiring! (We hope to have an RV by 2013.)
Always fun when you can play games with what folks expect is a simply ‘small talk’ question 🙂