Before I came home, I emailed a friend to say I was coming into town and ask if she was busy this past weekend. She emailed back to say, "Yes, I am busy, and now you're busy too." She took me to a couple of really cool events, one of which I plan to write about more. At both events, there were plenty of people I didn't know, and she was very gracious about introducing me to her friends and colleagues, but she kept saying, "This is my friend Holly, from Pennsylvania." And I would have to say, "No, I'm not FROM Pennsylvania; I just live there right now. I'm FROM Arizona--Thatcher, Arizona, to be exact."
I realize this isn't a big deal to everyone, but it's a big deal to me. In a way that is deeply important, I really truly am FROM and OF the Southwest. I was born in Arizona and raised Mormon at a time when Mormonism was still in many regards a regional religion, and my sense of self is thoroughly tied up with a sense of place, as well as a sense of community and spirituality that derives quite specifically and literally from the place I was taught to call both "zion" and "home." It MATTERED that I was not only born in Arizona, but born in Arizona because my ancestors walked the distance from Illinois to Utah, then headed south for various reasons. Frankly, it matters to me still.
So to introduce me to people by saying that I'm FROM some place without no real mountains to speak of and a great lake and lots of rivers instead of pervasive and profound aridity is akin to introducing me as "Heidi" or "Heather," both of which I get called from time to time: even though you can see how people make that mistake, it's just not right, and it's annoying to have to correct someone on this.
And then there was what happened when I asked other people where they were from.