Christ is Risen!
Yesterday, April 8, was Pascha, or Easter, for Orthodox Christians. Yes, celebrating according to a different calendar means that we are a week behind everyone else this year.
Pascha also meant that my wife and I arrived at church late Saturday night, for the paschal service that started at 11:30 pm, so that we would be well-positioned to ring in the feast at midnight. We stumbled home and into bed at 4 am. I am giving myself a pass today. I’ll get some work done, but I still slept in.
Given all the festivities, and the fact that I was still finishing an index on Saturday, I did not have time to draft a blog post over the weekend. But I still want to post something. Yesterday afternoon, as my wife and I were prepping food in the kitchen for another paschal party last night, we were listening to music by friends of ours, The Eisenhauers. One song caught my attention in a way it hadn’t before, and I realized that it could make a very good TCK song. By that I mean, a song that captures an aspect of being a Third Culture Kid, which is someone who has grown up in multiple countries, especially countries which are not your passport country or your parents’ passport countries. As I described it once in another essay, you are a born expat.
(For those of you wondering why I am talking about Third Culture Kids, I was born in Canada to Canadian parents, and I grew up in Taiwan from roughly the ages of two to eighteen. My parents still live in Taiwan, though I myself now live in Canada.)
Jeremy and Sheree Eisenhauer are not TCKs, but a few years ago they did uproot from Vancouver and move to the small town of Kaslo, BC. As Sheree sings, she had never been to that town before. It was a risky move. If I remember correctly, Sheree wrote this song while they were driving, with all their stuff, to Kaslo. The song does an excellent job capturing the mix of sadness, uncertainty, hope, and excitement that can accompany a major move to a new and unknown place. I think that those are all emotions that TCKs can relate to.
Another TCK song is, of course, Alice Merton’s “No Roots.” My wife first heard it a few months ago and told me, “The songwriter has to be a TCK.” I absolutely agree. A quick check of her biography confirms that. Take a look at these lyrics: “I build a home and wait for someone to tear it down / Then pack it up in boxes, head for the next town running.” So brutal, and so true.
The last song I will mention is “The Bard’s Song,” by Blind Guardian. I first heard the song, and Blind Guardian, my grade twelve year of high school, when I was preparing to leave Taiwan and move to Canada for university. That was a very difficult move for me. I was more resigned than excited about the move, and once in Canada it took about four years before I started to feel settled. This song really spoke to my fears about the move, especially these lines: “Tomorrow will take us away / Far from home / No one will ever know our names.” As well as to my fervent wish that something familiar and stable would remain in the midst of the chaos of moving: “But the bards’ songs will remain.” You could say that this was my theme song for moving to Canada. I still get emotional listening to it.
Normally Blind Guardian is a power metal band, very epic and operatic. I do enjoy their music. But for the music video for this song, they performed a gorgeous acoustic version. That is what I am posting here. Enjoy.
If you are a TCK, what songs capture the experience for you?