“Where are you from?”

Such an interesting question.

On the one hand, I think it is absolutely fundamental to the human experience to ask this. It is rooted in the primal idea of “clan,” the big question of “friend or foe?”

Midcoast resident Heather D. Martin wants to know what’s on your mind; email her at heather@heatherdmartin.com.

I think about all of the many cultures where when people meet, they greet each other with a recitation of their lineage. They speak about who they are and where they are from, and sometimes ancestors and landscape are spoken of in the same way – because they both have shaped who a person is.

In this way, “where are you from?” is a deeply poetic, personal and meaningful thing.

On the other hand, it can also be a tool of aggression, of “othering.” It can be used to imply that the human being on the receiving end of that question does not belong, is not wanted. Sometimes, it is more than implied, it is outright screamed.

So I am careful with the question, lest someone feel it land on them in a way I did not intend.

For myself, the question can be answered in several different ways.

Some of my ancestors came here on the Mayflower. Complicated. Some of my ancestors arrived escaping World War II. Complicated. One of my great aunts wore her Daughters of the American Revolution and Magna Charta Dame pins – on the underside of her lapel. My grandfather forbade any of us to learn his native German; he wanted us clear of it.

Origins are complicated.

I was born in San Diego. That is where Dad grew up, my sisters, too. We moved east when I was little, though, so even though it is a part of me, it isn’t where I’m from.

I was raised in northern central Massachusetts. Farm country. It was normal to ride my horse through the town center to go inside to get a grinder (a sub sandwich, for those of you not from there). I grew up there, but it was never home.

I was already inside the Maine state borders by the time I turned 18. I went to college here, got married, raised kids, and have been here ever since. I know I’m “from away.” I even had a neighbor who, lovingly, referred to my kids as “the biscuits.” If you know, you know.

The weird thing though, lately “away” has lost its meaning. Sort of.

I was not born here, I was not raised here, I was the first one in my family to live here, but where I used to feel that keenly – now here is where my heart calls home.

Somewhere along the journey of this life, while I was busy hiking kids up mountains, walking dogs along dirt roads and doing my best at my work, I made my home here. And it was just that – a very active process of “making.”

At the end of the day, I think that maybe what defines, well, maybe not where you are “from,” but at least where you “belong,” is where you decide to carve a life. It is where you know your neighbors, and where you do your part to keep things running and make life a little better for the next ones to come along.

Borders are arbitrary and malleable. History teaches us that. Deciding who and how we want to be while we’re here, that’s the real stuff.

So do me a favor, please. Keep thinking about all the things we’ve talked about here. About what it means to be a part of this community, about what it means to be a part of the global citizenry, and about what it means to extend a welcome to someone new, someone who might be “from” someplace else who is looking to make their home here.

We are all so lucky that when someone asks us, “where are you from?” this place is at least part of our answer.