It’s always interesting and a bit sad when someone reads my blog and immediately goes “You must be British!”. I use the words “colour” and “flavour”, but most of my spelling remains Americanized and the English I used is a rather modern thing for me too.
The truth of it is, I’m English and I’m not. I wasn’t born there, I don’t have an accent, and I don’t always use the English spelling or pronunciation for words. But it’s there, in my blood. The rest of my family from my parents to my brother to my grandparents and cousins are English. I know we have Viking blood somewhere back there but I don’t know enough of my family history to go back that far. I have an English passport, my entire extended family is over there, and my friends always give me a second glance when I say ‘garage’ and ‘vitamin’. The last time I visited the country I could feel my Englishness in my bones – I hadn’t been there in over ten years but it felt like home. It was the first trip in which airports didn’t make me nervous, and I travelled around London with no maps, no safety nets, just me and an Oyster card and a look to the horizon to see where I wanted to go.
There are so many days I could prove my Englishness to the rest of the world. I wish I had my parents’ accents, their experience of growing up in the English countryside. I wish I naturally spelled things the English way but alas, it’s a bit of a ruse. I started last year, trying to “re-claim” some of my roots through my writing. I still don’t know if it’s working – some days I feel like a bit of a con woman. But then I realize, it’s still me. I have just as much of a right to find my own way to re-claim my background, my culture for my own. I’ve even gone back to watching British television like I used to as a child (I was practically raised on British humor, which is quite crude you know). I just wish there was something I could do with my damn American accent. It’s a part of me too, and I know that, but….I can’t even fake an English accent. I’ve tried, reading to myself, and I sound like a total idiot.
Perhaps I’ll find a way, but for now I’ll keep googling English vs. American spellings every time I type a word and I’m not sure. I’ll giggle every time I type “colour” and I’ll laugh my ass off watching the Graham Norton Show. And I’ll always be English, no matter what anyone else says. But also, just a tiny bit American.
Find Me!