Tuesday, January 24, 2012

When do I start saying I'm from here?

In about six weeks, I'll have lived in Yinzlandia for nine years. That's a long time. But I still say I live in Yinzlandia, but I'm from Beaver Cleaver, Ohio. I don't know why I feel the need to "clarify."

Don't get me wrong, I love living in Yinzlandia. There's so much to see and do. I love the city neighborhoods, I love the architecture of the buildings, I love the hills (just don't ask me to go up and then look down). I go for walks at lunch (when it's nice enough to go outside) and have discovered things like Gertrude Stein's childhood home, the home of George Ferris, Jr, the inventor of the Ferris wheel. All within blocks of my job. So cool!

Maybe after 10 years I'll start saying I'm from here? 20 years?

Any other transplants out there? When did you start saying you were from "here"?

4 comments:

Constant Gardener said...

I have no idea when (if ever) I'll stop saying I'm from Pittsburgh and say I'm from Baltimore. Then again, not many people can claim they went to high school, college, and grad school within two blocks of each other COMPLETELY NOT BY DESIGN. :-D

Hp0 said...

I don't know that I could ever admit I was from "Baltimore."

Leigh Anne Vrabel said...

Woohoo, you're blogging!

It'll be 15 years for me this fall, and while I feel more "from here" than I did, there's still that sense of "outlander" hovering around my shoulders. Maybe it's all in my head?

Ellen Detlefsen said...

While I have been in da Burgh for (gasp!) 38 years, I have not yet been able to say that I am "from" here. Sigh. My sons, on the other hand, were born here and consider themselves forever-Steeler-fans and passionate-Pirate-people, even though they have both moved on to the Right and the Left Coast in the classic Pittsburgh Diaspora model. My younger son can (and does on occasion) speak excellent Yinzer, and my grandson adores his Yappin' Yinzer doll.

However, I do admit to giving directions with the phrase "go to where the Isaly's used to be," so does that count?