In my head there’s a roadmap to a life of pure American bliss. Clear signals. A suburban neighborhood with a loping road. A beautiful woman smiling louchely in a crowded bookstore. That journey is always impeded by breaches in the landscape. Every immigrant is on a learning curve, in continual flux. You’re spinning in America’s kick wheel trying not to be shaped into something you’re not ready to become.
It’s always memory and landscape you turn to, to discover yourself in a new place. So what happens when that landscape stares back and you don’t recognize yourself in it? You try a “call-and-response” with another aspect of the landscape. And for me, an African raised on animist principles, that’s American spirituality.
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