Is Home Where the Heart Is? Expats Reflect Through Photography
As Americans living abroad, defining “home” is complicated. In everyday conversation, we use “home” to refer to our apartment here in Reims, but “home” has also been in Troyes during our time with the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF), in Fredericksburg when we were undergraduate students at the University of Mary Washington, and in the suburbs of Richmond for the first eighteen years of our lives.
The longer we live in France, the stranger the notion of anywhere in the United States being “home” becomes. Yet, so many of our memories were made in Virginia. Moreover, our nationality is a topic of daily conversation and our American habits color everything we do – no matter how well we’ve adapted to life à la française.
So, then, where is our home? We can’t honestly say we know the answer!
We know that France is the right place for us, but we never want to forget our roots. Luckily, our photography hobby allows us to reminisce on everywhere we’ve ever lived, as our frequent photo shoots throughout the years have resulted in thorough documentation of the places we love all over the world.
Though we usually regale you with stories and pictures of our adventures abroad, in this post, we want to share a piece of the place we grew up with our readers. For better or for worse, we’re American born and raised, and a little piece of us will always picture Virginia when we hear the word “home.”
If home is where the heart is, ours isn’t a singular point on a map. For us, “home” is scattered far and wide, an international mosaic of the people, places, and things that have made us who we are today. Where is home for you? Is it where you currently live, or somewhere else? Do you call more than one place home? Let us know in a comment!
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