The house is ours. It is probably a little small by U.S. standards for a 4 person household, but for us it seems very grand and spacious. I am now in the middle of having it painted, insulated, grassed, and in general getting it all ship shape and bristol fashion.

We move in on the 24th of this month.

It's a cloudy, drizzly, day here in Beaverton. I'm guessing I will be writing more emails during the winter, rainy months because the atmosphere is more conducive to pensive-ness.


I can't seem to stop thinking about culture and identity and what it feels like when you live in the place you feel is "home."

You see, I haven't lived at "home" for many, many years. And I guess in the back of my mind I always figured that once we "settled down" with our family and one of us with a good job and kids and everything I would finally feel home in a way I haven't felt since I left for college. Now I know that even if I did go back to Cleveland Heights and hung out with my friends and my dad and went to coffee shops I used to hang out in I would probably still feel like an outsider.

But Kirsten, you say, you've only been back in the States for 3 months, you must be patient, it takes at least a year.

And I know that, but I want to be home now. Yet I still feel that vague sense of separateness I heretofore blamed on being Caucasian in Japan. But I can't blame it on that anymore. This is my country. And it's not like I am in some kind of rural whiteland either, there are mixed race and mixed culture people everywhere here.

So, was I deluded all these years? Do other people feel slightly disconnected even if they stay in or near the place they grew up? Is this a permanent condition?

I was talking to two other Caucasian wives of Japanese (CWJ's) and both of them had interesting takes on the identity thing. One of them was commenting on how they couldn't believe I "let" Naoto do rugby (it means he doesn't come home two nights a week in time to see the girls and he had all day saturday games sometimes) because of the time thing. I felt a little suprised myself that I had encouraged him to do this. I would never never have done that in Japan because I would have been concerned with him not having enough family time as a salarman.

So why is it okay for him in the U.S. not to have time with the girls? I am not sure. It may be that I am grateful he's giving up his country for mine. It may be that my image of a Japanese salaryman was so constricted that I worried needlessly about it in Japan. It may be that I have a car here and don't 'need' Naoto to get out of the house so much.

The other CWJ was saying how her husband had really changed since they moved to Portland. He is very controlling, doesn't want her to buy any furniture or even decide on an internet service without him. As he is far away on training while she's here with two small children, it is a little inconvenient. We both wondered if his anxiety about living in the States was coming out as micromanaging that which he could control: his homelife.

So maybe that was my problem in Japan and now I feel less urgency to control everything back in the States?

I mean, maybe I have this totally unrealistic expectation of how much time American Dads really get to spend with their children. Or maybe I have an unrealistic expectation that my family should actually see eachother more than about 2 hours a day?

Am I crazy?