In the deep corner of my heart, I'm a Chicagoan, but it's been covered over by 20 years of living in the Bay Area.
I still feel like I'm the girl from Texas.
I didn't leave Africa, I left Nigeria, and for political reasons. But ... I've never, never left Africa, and I certainly never left what it means to be Ibo. That is something you carry with you.
I still have my buddies from back home, I still have my family. They really help to keep me grounded. I try to call them and talk to them about their everyday life.
When you live in a lot of places, you can't help but have them become part of you. Technically, I am a Southerner, but I did not grow up in the South. So I'm a Southerner by accident, but a Washingtonian.
The four places I've called home in my life have been Lahore, London, New York and California. And I have a very strong tie to each one of those four places.
You can take the girl out of Texas but not the Texas out of the girl and ultimately not the girl out of Texas.
Issues become much more real to me when I have stories back home.
I guess one of the things that is an advantage of the world in which we live is that I can at least I can have multiple homes. I can have that attachment to Montana and to Cambridge and to India.
If I'm in LA, I'm close to home, and that just brings up all these other things, good and bad. There is a reason why I am not there .
