Magazine Love
Your Wellesley magazine is sensational! Thank you!
Lucy Fowler Klug ’56, Baileys Harbor, Wis.
Finding Home
Special thanks to classmate Paula Butturini ’73 whose article “Not All Here” appeared in the spring ’15 issue. It was so wonderfully written and helped me put words to some of my own feelings when my dad retired from the military in 1967. We tried to put down roots in New Hampshire, after constant transferring from base to base and school to school for all of my 16 years of life. I never really could label anywhere “home” and still can’t. I can never answer the “where are you from?” question with just a word or two. This is especially hard now that I find myself in St. Louis where it’s all about “where did you go to school?”—referring to high school. More wonderful insights from Paula can be found in her book Keeping the Feast, which I relived on a trip to Rome and its outdoor markets.
Kathryn Porterfield ’73, University City, Mo.
Long-Term Expats
I greatly enjoyed the essay by Paula Butturini ’73 and its appropriate title, “Not All Here.” The Wellesley Club of France has a number of long-term expatriates—or migrants, depending on your semantic preference—and we are fortunate to count Paula among our members. I was not alone in finding that Paula perfectly captured our sense of bewilderment in not ever being completely at home in the country of our birth, though one can grow to be at ease again. She examined how time and geography factor into those disconcerting cultural shifts, which I feel even upon short visits to the nation I left 21 years ago and despite decades of internet use. Naomi Hattaway wrote a popular blog post a couple of years ago, entitled “I am a Triangle and Other Tips for Repatriation” (found here). In my own words, we long-term residents of foreign countries become hybrids. Our children undergo cultural speciation. Our binocular, or multifocal, perspectives enable us to see new dimensions. Only in describing them to those who cannot empathize strongly with experiences of alienation and integration do we discover that our vocabulary, sometimes enriched with additional languages, often remains insufficient.
Heather Corbett Etchevers ’92, Bouc-Bel-Air, France
Broad Resonance
Paula Butturini’s article, “Not All Here,” about her move back to the U.S. after three decades abroad was fascinating and very well written. I was so impressed with it that I passed the article to the director of the Norton Center for the Common Good at the Loomis Chaffee School in Connecticut. He found it so compelling that he has recommended her as a speaker for the school’s speaker series next year.
I also gave it to my neighbor, who is from New Zealand, for his perspective. He has been working for the IMF here for the last 15 years. He was very interested in her concept of “home,” and referred to a New Zealand song that has the lyrics “once you leave, you can’t go back again.” He wrote, “Despite the negative, there are a fair amount of good things about America, though I do share her question if America needs eight versions of Oreos. … A lingering memory of my arrival was my effort to buy muesli.”
This article has sparked several interesting discussions with others of my friends, as Paula’s book, Keeping the Feast, did with my book club a few years ago. I appreciate the writing that appears in the magazine, and it is a great sign when the articles reach and enrich a far greater audience than just people associated with Wellesley College.
Kathleen Conklin ’73, Falls Church, Va.
On the Perimeter
As a teenage immigrant to the U.S., I adapted to living in many places, but I never felt that I put down roots deep enough to feel “at home” anywhere. I was always a little on the perimeter looking in. Even when I go back to my country of origin, my life experience is so different from that of family and friends who have lived in the same town, or close by, all along that I am not “All There” either. Thank you to Paula Butturini for the great article. I truly identified with the experiences she describes and the feelings that are difficult to put into words.
Valeria Trambusti Shapiro ’73, Orlando, Fla.
Mrs. Bush on Campus
Thank you to Christine Bicknell Marden ’90 and Wellesley magazine for the marvelous reflection on commencement 1990 (“When Mrs. Bush Came to Visit,” online exclusive, magazine.wellesley.edu). It is such a wonderful reminder of how grace and direct connection turned what could have been a mean-spirited external dialogue into a rich, important, and even humorous exchange. Thanks to Chris and Mrs. Bush for the vital roles they played in making it so! And, who knew that such amazing photos of this day existed? It’s great to see Chris and her BFF immortalized in print!
Katherine Collins ’90, Boston