Caledonia
A video on YouTube reminded me that I’ve spent a long time considering a question most people can answer without thinking: where are you from?
Just to destroy any nascent suspense aroused by that opening, the answer is “Scotland”. It probably always will be, because this is not the same question as “where is home?”. That one is generally even harder to answer, especially in this mid-twenties phase that I’m going through. For the sake of brevity, I’ll leave the harder question for later, just like I would in an exam. So, “where are you from?”
If your answer is simple, you should treasure that simplicity. If you have to stop and think and um and ah, you should treasure the life that led up to your current decision: it’s probably been pretty interesting, and the stories will help pad out long train rides with strangers. Or blog posts.
I um and ah because I was told so much at primary school that I wasn’t really Scottish. I was born in London, you see, and with two older brothers and many friends of English parentage growing up, I speak like I’m from south of the border even though I hadn’t uttered a word during my time there. The English accent, and inability to name an edinburgh hospital as my birthplace, made my claims of Scottishness seem shaky. But that is the point of view of a child, and I have grown more confident with age.
I now say Scotland without hesitation, because it is where I’m from. Not where I was born, not where both of my parents are from, not where my brother thinks he’s from, or even where I’ve spent most of my adult life. Where I’m from. Scottishness isn’t a question of birthplace or descent - it’s a state of mind, a sense of belonging and identity that we share. As a result of my own tumultuous route to this conclusion, I’m widely accepting of other people’s self identity, regardless of how baseless it may seem.
So, if you’re from Scotland, or Ireland, or you’re just European or an Internationalist, be what you are, not what other people think you should be. Birth has nothing to do with it.
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