In practice i am still very much an American. Any projects in Serbian reconstruction will be dealing with that. Especially since I moved to the Netherlands I realise how much of an American I am. Also it is not accidental that I married a Dutch man. In my anti racist self education I came to see two trends in myself: colonial trend and colonized trend. They are both there. The colonial trend you use to survive, treat people with true kindness,(and study VERY RIGOUROUSLY the difference between true kindness and false kindness! BTW Ram Dass wrote a good book on that.) confront the patterns you can stop and try not to make more. The colonised trend you recognise as human, heal and feed, document abuse, keep from acting out the abuse unjustly on others. One thing America never gave a 3rd gen./more gen. immigrant like me is a sane society on a humble level.
America is very problematic and the whole country is hyperactive. As a child of twinkie parents this sanity was something I needed desperately. I sensed it from some NDN people and also from some other people sometimes but it was not mine in the sense that it was not my nation. I had to be honest and be about coming from my own power otherwise this would never work. I thought about it one day. I had to get out of the colony. Alas I had to stay on the colonial trend within myself for now because I couldn't see another way to survive. I had to follow it down. (undo it in a way.) If I had stayed in the US I would have gone around and around in circles of abuse that do not end. People say of the colonizers: they are here, they are not going back. I thought why the hell not. Let me be the first one.
I started following the root of the colonial place I was in to find a less colonial place in the same energy language. I went from the idea that English was my nation because I spoke the English language, (and I always loved Shakespeare in highschool LOL) and that is partly true and a guidance affirmed that for me. Guidance was clear England was too wrapped up in America's colonial pattern. Next stop, Scotland/Ireland. There are out and proud Scottish Irish types and I knew some in high school when we were teenagers and they made it clear I was less included in the universe. Painful place. Racist against South Europeans and surely more. At that point my mind was on a level of, can I reproduce a Scottish accent? But I wasn't supposed to go there. My guidance said Dutch. Also as a root of the English language speakers grounding in reality. Less obvious and less hyperactive. And I was sure to get the linguistic grounding I needed to reproduce that Scottish accent.
I forgot this for a while. In my twinkie world I forget a lot of things. About a year later I went with my parents to visit my Norwegian/Sami/Polish American WWII vet expatriate grandfather's posthumous art exhibit in Germany. Long story short I met my husband. Hung out for a week in this Ex Scientology fad Belgian Chalet and fell in love. Now what to do? Big ocean! Oh yeah. I always wanted to expatriate! Guess this is my calling!
I have indeed been able to get alot healthier since I live in a place where the linguistic connection to the land is still somewhat intact. I am also doing alot better since my contact with my parents is severely limited. Neither of them have really been able to parent me and neither of them are able to take responsibility for that.
There is some intimacy I feel with the Dutch people that I could recognise as deep and truly connected. It is profound compared to my American alienation and it is the right direction for me but there is still a lot of work to do. And there is a real racism here. Obviously the plastic shaman problem which I saw but was not strong enough to really see confidently till I found this forum. My sons walk in the world as Moroccan Dutch men so that is also obvious. We listen to a lot of Hip Hop music around our house. Still a lot of work to do. Some of it is mine. Still a bridge. Have much more success being an anti racism negotiator since I have become able to speak in a grounded way. Trying to stay in one place long enough that my daughter get less moving from place to place trauma than I did. We still live in the house she was born in.
I feel visceral connection with my Sami roots disproportionate to my blood quantum. Also with my Jewish droplet this is a fact I have had to internally acknowledge, even if I never discuss it. With these two I needed to know these cultures in order to understand how my own personality functions.
As a Hippie I am resting on things like Ram Dass, The Beat poets, activism, and such. It truly is my cultural context as an individual in this temporary period I am in. My mind is blown way wide open. But I am really sick of an unhealthy state. I just keep exploring and finding new ideas. it's a painful place to be. progress helps but the pain is still around. I have had much connection researching Amiri Baraka on the internet as he was a seminal beat poet and he gives context to the racial situation in America. Black music and culture is an important key for any spaced out capitalist lost person, as there is a real tradition there that also has been appropriated. Anybody who loves Rock and Roll music for example should learn the cultural grounding from the African Diaspora and learn on a deep level what the nature of respect might be in their own musical choices.
I got also English, Irish, Dutch, French and German, and three droplets I am not naming.
At age ten I took a little walk some distance from the party at the lakeside cabin in Minnesota where we had visited many times before. I thought about the direct profession for spirituality the people at the party had been making for some years. I saw also the hedonism and that they were not serious and could not be trusted. There has always been some gifts that I carry and I knew this was the time to really ask some questions. I asked the tradition that was being represented there where the truth was that I needed to know. That was spirituality from India and I was told the only value the Guru trend had was in the spiritual traditions of the humble people of India in their integrity, and that every place has the old traditions where integrity can be sought, and seeking something without integrity was not fruitful.
Being of many mixed nations is something I have to acknowledge. There are ways I act as a bridge. I also have to choose only ONE. That is Serbian. The others can be friends. There are bigger things in my personality that I have learned are ALL about being Serbian. Every time I end up hanging out with anybody even near that region I feel my personality starting to ground and heal. That happens with the others too to some extent.
I think the main problem with twinkiness comes from capitalism. Many many many people believe everything is for sale.
