Vindictively American

The book I am currently reading is Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell. It wasn't a book I planned to read, but it was on sale at Powell's when we were there and it looked good, so I got it. I quite like it, it's filled with very humourous and touching shapshots of her life or history. One of the stories I read yesterday was titled Vindictively American, after a quote from Ralph Ellison:

Personally, I am too vindictively American, too full of hate for the hateful aspects of this country, and too possessed by the things I love here to be too long away.

I suppose it is too easy for me to be away for awhile from the US, but still there's a definite truth I hear in that quotation. And the story was interesting for me too, especially since it takes place in the Netherlands. The author spent a semester studying at the University of Leiden, and while she was there the Rodney King riots took place, which she watches on the Dutch news. The first Gulf War was also going on, leading to Dutch people asking her why she'd ever want to go back to her home country. Well, because it's home. I suppose I was in a similar situation with being here on September 11. Thinking back, I don't remember specific situations of trying to explain my country to Dutch or European people soon after Sept 11, but I know I have had to try on various occasions since. Most of the time, the only answer I can give is a shrug and shake of my head to questions like, why are guns so common, but health care not so much. I know I don't want to live in the US, not for the forseeable future, yet, as I often say to people, I'd move to Portland in a heartbeat, if only it weren't in the US. It hurts, knowing where it is I feel most at home, but knowing there are too many things wrong there to go back.