I Want a Divorce
from the arranged marriage of citizenship
Scotland and the rest of the UK is so very generous to those unfortunate souls like me who wish we could live here but do not have the required parent or grandparent first or second-generation status. We are allowed to stay here for up to 180 cumulative days without any form of visa. But then we have to get out - for 180 consecutive days. (For those of you who haven’t had your coffee yet, that’s six months.) When I finally get around to leaving (any day now… really), I won’t be able to return until October.
I don’t have a parent or a grandparent who was born here in Scotland, but I do have a great-great grandfather James, born in 1809 in Elgin, Scotland. He’s the one in our Canadian American family who came over from Scotland to settle in Ontario, Canada. I have a greatx3, also James, and a newly discovered greatx4, David. As those of you who have seriously dabbled in genealogy know, the three ways to sleuth out a dead relative from the long-ago past is from one of three declarative certificates proving that you walked the Earth at some point in time - those of birth, marriage, and death. Certificates and trophies for curling bonspiels are valid documents, too.
The Historical Society in Inverness found David’s marriage certificate from 1777, putting his birth somewhere close to the 1750s. If I want to find David’s parents, the kind woman who did the search with me at the center advised me to visit graveyards up in the singular Northern County where all my relatives lived and died. People who have never researched their family tree may not understand what all the fuss is about, but when you see the signature of your distant relative on a birth certificate from two hundred years ago - it moves you.
My son is wrapping up his third year in Japan working as an English teacher. He has two months to find a new job, or he has to leave the country. Like most countries, Japan allows people visiting there as tourists - with no work or student visa - to stay for three months, then they must leave.
Being an island a tad smaller than the state of California but with three times as many people, the Japanese people still manage to bury their dead’s ashes in cemeteries. As a visitor walking around in Japan searching in vain for a trashcan, you see these clusters of tombstones everywhere within the residential neighborhoods. There is very little need to search for dead relatives when they are buried across from the doorstep of your home.
Over thirty years ago, my husband and I visited New Zealand for the requisite three-month tourist period. We worked on organic farms, staying at hostels in between farm stays. Loving the country so much, we applied for and obtained a visa for a fourth month. In my early twenties then, that trip experience shaped the course of my life, marking me with the questions of residency requirements and the “why” of it all.
I have Canadian dual citizenship thanks to both of my parents being born in Canada. (One parent would have been enough of a requirement). I have yet to become a resident of Canada, since I would have to reside there for a full twelve months without leaving. This would subject me not only to their sub-zero winters, but to a life without Trader Joe’s. (However, it does seem to be getting a little bit…hotter here in the States as of late.)
It makes no sense to me that even though Canada, New Zealand, and the UK are all Commonwealth countries, we cannot cross-populate as residents. People I talk to in the States about all this residency and visa flotsam and jetsam seem to think we can live where we want. Why do people think that? Well, beyond the statistical fact (remember those?) that only twenty-five percent of Americans ever travel outside of their country, they think that because it seems sensible and rational. But we can’t. Even if I were to buy a house here in Scotland, I would still have to leave for 180 consecutive days a year. And…no driver’s license is issued to foreigners here in the UK - ever. Never mind that due to my love of the bus drivers here, but foreigners? I reject this word. And the band sucked, too.
The bottom line here in our “global community” is that it is not a global community…but it should be. Can we not evolve, already? (T-shirt slogan for the day: “Evolve, dammit.”) There seems to be a huge backslide of human evolution and civility (thanks, Bill) going on everywhere in our world. And no, Canada, you are not perfect either. Why can’t we live where we want? Why can’t we share our talents and shining personalities, hearts, love - and money - with our chosen communities without having to “marry in” or claiming asylum because our country of origin’s government has lost its mind? What is up with all this ongoing “arranged marriage”-format simply due to place of birth?
It’s the same answer you get when you dig deep down to the drudge at the bottom of any question involving groups of people and the care and wellbeing of their body and mind - money. No one wants to take responsibility for you if you are out wandering in their backyard and trip and fall or suffer a stroke or heart attack on a mountain trail as a result of eating too many sausage rolls and there is no defibrillator in sight where you hit the ground. OK. Fair enough. What about global health insurance? Nope - now you are taking away your monetary tax and insurance input from your country of birth origin. They can’t have that.
I really do believe that if we shook the Earth up like a snow globe and let the fairy dust settle - where people are the fairy dust settling post-shake to wherever their heart’s desire is fulfilled when they look out the window - the dangerous Titanic-list of this present time? … the ship would be righted, and no one would drown.
See you soon back at the place where I was born.
Playlist: Foreigner
Blessings & Love,
Photo credits: Melanie McLeod | top - B&B in Illinois | center - Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye | second from bottom - my favorite place in Scotland | bottom - family tree