Chapter One

Kiran Deshpande: Where Are You From? I have lanced many boils, but none pained like my own. INDIAN ADAGE

I’m never sure what people want to know when they ask me: “Where are you from?”

The question doesn’t offend me, as I’m curious about people myself. I’m fascinated by the origins of family trees, the land and seas over which seeds migrate, cross-pollinate, and germinate anew.

In my thirty-two years, I’ve traveled to all fifty United States, lived in ten of them, in every American time zone, most since I left home for college at seventeen and never moved back. A modern gypsy, I’ve developed an ear for accents. I’m charmed by different cadences. It’s a game for me to place them, to listen for the fish out of water.

“Is that Texas I hear?” I ask with a smile—always a smile, the universal ambassador of goodwill—of a lady in Juno, Alaska.

I never ask that slippery little devil, you know the one: “Where are you from?”

Sometimes, I envy people who can answer this deceptively simple question in two words or less. “Jersey” or “Chicago,” “New Orleans” or “Southern Cal.” People who’ve lived most of their lives in a single state, sometimes even a single town. People whose physical appearance or last name is unremarkable.

I don’t fall into any of these categories.

When I get this question—not an everyday occurrence, but I get it more than most—I’m never certain what information the person seeks. Is it the origin of my own mid-Atlantic accent? My heritage? My married name