Finding Home

When I was a child, my family had the tendency to move. One of the places we called home was a stretch of land in an agrarian community named Caledonia. At the time, I had no idea that “Caledonia” is Latin for “Scotland.” Nor was I aware that this region had been settled by U.K. immigrants. Unknowingly steeped in that sovereign nation’s culture, I learned every lyric of “Drunken Sailor,” "Nut Brown Maiden" and “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” in school. Our neighbors spoke of banshees in the gloaming and selkies in the sea. The library stacked Brontë, Burns, and Dahl beneath highland landscapes trapped in ornate frames. Heck, I thought every American parade featured old men wearing wild skirts and blurting bagpipes.
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We moved. The deep snows of northern Wisconsin froze out those lush childhood memories. The turbulent echoes of the Vietnam War eroded such bucolic images from my heart.

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