I first left the US in ‘62, when I was twenty-two. For the next thirty years I was in and out, mostly to France but also Italy, and I saw American cultural change in snapshots. I have to say though, that when I moved to France definitively in ‘92 and stayed for over twenty years in a small village — in spite of being fluent in French — I learned things about myself as an American I didn’t realize I needed to know.

At this point I know I can’t go back to the States, nor do I want to. America is becoming alarmingly dystopian. We’re worried about our children and grandchildren.