Old Country
It’s always astonishing to me how valuable a good routine shake-up can be. As someone who easily falls into ruts, spending some time on a completely different schedule gifts me with a bright new perspective and the ability to come back to my “normal life” with a renewed sense of what’s important. Seriously, I’ve GOT to add a little more variety to my day-to-day!
In the past two weeks, I’ve :
• Traveled by car, shuttle, plane, bus, subway, tram, and train
• Eaten a croissant/pain au chocolat/lemon tart every single day (and sometimes, a combination of all three!)
• Watched the sky grow bright over Paris while waiting for said pastries to be ready, devouring them hot from the oven the minute they were in my hands
• Ordered nearly every meal using the French I’ve slowly and painstakingly learned over the past couple years
• Walked ninety five miles (if my phone is to be believed)
• Been brought to tears in Monet’s garden and then again while standing before his water lily paintings in L’Orangerie
• Rethought my ENTIRE artistic life and the processes I will use moving forwards
• Met up with the rest of my family in the country of our ancestors
•Traded cobbled roads for a trail through beech forests
• Foraged for blackberries and learned the difference between edible and inedible chestnuts
• Submitted my paperwork for Luxembourgish citizenship
That last one was the reason for the whole trip, really. We had planned to do all of this way back in the early months of last year, but then COVID happened…and ever since, it’s been a struggle to get all of us to Luxembourg so we could, as a family, take back this little part of our heritage. The journey was three years in the making, and to walk through the town where my (many times) great grandfather once lived had a poetic sense of completion.
But, you’re asking, how? Why? Well, it began with a little luck.
My aunt, while back in Wisconsin visiting relatives in 2018, made an unplanned stop at the Luxembourg American Cultural Society to do a little ancestry research - and discovered that the country was offering dual citizenship to those who could prove they had an ancestor who had left the country in the 1800’s and was still alive in the year 1900.
To make a long story short, there was great famine and poverty during those years and MANY people left. As I remember it, the people that left were stripped of their citizenship to help the country recover. In the early 2000’s, historians noted that the great reduction in people had indeed helped them to become one of the richest modern-day countries - and called them out on it. SO - Luxembourg responded by allowing decedents of those who had left to reclaim their citizenship. For a ten year period, all you needed was proof of ancestry to become a Luxembourger - which made my dad, brothers, and I all eligible.
Of course, my aunt found out right before the end of that period. So we all scrambled to get paperwork together before the deadline, including proving our ancestry and submitting birth certificates and background checks. And then, with everything ready to go - the trip was put off indefinitely. We were crushed at the time, unsure if we’d be able to take the final step before time ran out - because, to complete the process, paperwork NEEDED to be submitted in person in Luxembourg City.
But after all that time, we did it. We finally made the trip and we did it together.
So that’s the how…and here’s the why.
There are, of course, a few benefits to having dual citizenship. We’ll be able to buy property in the EU if we ever want to move (let’s just say that there were MANY rather un-jokey jokes about moving while the previous president was in office). Because my Dad also went through the process, if my brothers or I ever have kids, they will automatically be third generation and be granted citizenship - can anyone say free college tuition? There are so many things that I love and appreciate about being American - this just affords us more options, more open doors should we ever want a life that’s different than the one we’re living right now.
For me, though, the biggest thing was always just connecting myself back to where I come from. I am forever puzzling over why I am the way I am, letting the argument of nature vs. nurture tumble around and around in my head. This tie felt important to me - a link back to the old country. Our days spent seeing the land my ancestors knew so well was something I needed to do - and now this new citizenship gives me a way to carry those origins with me as I move forwards with my own life.
Grateful is the word that comes to mind to describe what I’m feeling in this moment (though jet-lagged is fighting a close second!!). There is so much world to see, to explore, to experience - but now, maybe, there’s another little corner of this earth I can call home.
