Before I went across the super-sized puddle from the second state ever inducted into the union to Southern Germany, I could not have been decribed as very patriotic. I never really enjoyed saying the Pledge of Allegiance because it felt exclusive and cult-ish to me, especially as I grew older and out of elementary school where we all seemed so much more enthusiastic about everything. I felt a bit brainwashed by the amount of patriot jargon they injected into our glorious system of public education. As a child I loved my country, saw none of it's flaws and all of it's advantages and beauty. I had nothing to compare it to, I barely knew that there was any other place to be or to live.
As adults grow into their "acquired tastes" or the things that in childhood you always categorized as "yuck" they also grow into criticism. They become more balanced in view (notice I said "more balanced" not "completely balanced") and see that it is not perfekt, it is not all sweet and colorful and sing-along. Some of the world is ugly. As I came to the rebelious stage of my life, I didn't really learn anything new, I mean I had had two rebelious teenage sisters. What I did do was begin confirming the exoctically wild claims that they as teenagers made and making my plan to change the world. Along with this came disparaging loss of hope in our government and all institutions.... the "MAN" if you will. (Please note that this phase of life took part in the term of George W. Bush and therefore was rather logical in that...) So patriotism was not the biggest on my list, in fact I kept hearing about places, other countries and continents where things were different and asking myself why we weren't like them.
But as I arrived in Germany, I learned two things (well a lot more than that, but I learned two important things relative to the idea of patriotism) those were that I liked some things in Germany and some things I didn't liked. (revolutionary as a thought, I know) Germany was smaller, more city-like, their buildings are as tightly packed together as the people in the public buses are at 7 am! You can ride your bike to the store, you can freely go almost whenever you want, whenever you feel like it. Germany has bakeries, Germany has really kick ass board games, Germany has the German language!
But sometimes, like those nights walking back from soccer, I miss things like the stars. The open heavens, one of the original natural wonders of the universe, winking at us every night, but the light pollution of Europe makes it hard to see those stars as well as one would from say, my three-acre backyard. And there were more. Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl, the possibility of already being a learning driver, my mother's american pancakes on a Sunday morning! They are a connectedness that, despite some of their faults and stupidities, they are the smell, the taste, the familiarity of home. And that is why I am a patriot. Not because I love everything the United States has ever done, or will do. Patriotism is not about politics (although having Obama as a president is pretty rocking), patriotism is about home, about the people, about the food and love, and though I do love Germany and consider it, as of now especially, at least a second home, it comes only after the place I was born, the place I grew up, the place I now in it's mysteries and faults.
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