Greetings, and welcome to my new subscribers! The Embassy Cable is a monthly look behind the stories in Embassy Kid: An American Foreign Service Family Memoir, and the view from my writing desk as I share the book. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at my memoir-in-progress, Amsterdam Strong: Becoming Unstoppable, a bit about what I’m reading and watching, and, as always, a closing picture of Kumba, my rescue Lab and therapy dog.
This newsletter collapses two months into one. Sometimes, life happens. Family health comes first, and I’ve been away from my writer’s desk being a caregiver to my husband. As I’ll detail below, the experience truly informs my understanding of what my family went through when I was felled by a ruptured aneurysm, and the wisdom of the saying that you can’t take care of someone else if you don’t take care of yourself.
More Photos From Jane’s Childhood: Images behind the pages of Embassy Kid
It was the summer of 1971. After five years Stateside, the Amerson family was back on the Embassy road, this time with a posting to Madrid.
I was entering my senior year and my sister was a sophomore, and both of us felt very sure about wanting a school experience that mirrored our USA suburban life. The American high school at Torrejón Air Force Base just outside Madrid had the curriculum and extracurricular activities we wanted. And so, the Embassy kids fell in with the military kids, expat kids, and missionary kids at Torrejón. I played the field ping-ponging between groups and was voted Most Individualistic girl of my class.
Spain quickly had our hearts. New Year’s Eve saw us on Franco’s very safe streets long after popping twelve grapes into our mouths at midnight, and a trip to the beach after graduation landed me an honest tall-dark-and-handsome Madrileño who picked me up after class at the University of Madrid, where I completed a Junior Year Abroad as a freshman. It was the beginning of what would be a very turbulent decade of finding my footing after “aging out” of the Foreign Service.
Sharing Embassy Kid
My month of being a caregiver forced the postponement of my trip to Minnesota as well as my author signings at Barnes & Noble stores in South Florida. I look forward to getting these back on the calendar when life permits.
Meantime, I’m preparing to engage with others who identify as Third Culture Kids, spending their formative years in countries different from their parents’ passport countries. Like me, TCK’s have a hard time answering the simple question, “Where are you from?”
We envision a world where adult Third Culture Kids no longer feel alone on their journey, where a childhood in motion, spent across languages, cultures, and countries, becomes a source of insight and connection instead of isolation. We are building a thriving community where TCKs find words for their experience, tools to integrate it, and people who recognize themselves in each other’s stories. Over time, those further along in their integration return to guide those who come after them.
This is the vision of TCK Support Community for Third Culture Kids led by founder Andrea Clark, a therapist and an adult TCK, having spent her youth in Mexico and the USA. Andrea has invited me to speak on September 12 about writing Embassy Kid: “Writing Our Way Home: How Telling Our Stories Leads to Wholeness.” I’ll be sharing how setting my story down on paper helped me process the loss that was part of my journey, having to leave behind the people, places, and things that made each place we lived feel like home.
And speaking about travel, my little book has been on the road! Check out this remarkable image from a friend’s travel to the Amazon.
What I’m Writing
My work-in-progress, Amsterdam Strong, documents my three-month hospitalization in Amsterdam and years’ long rehabilitation following a ruptured abdominal aneurysm. My husband, daughter, and sister sat vigil at my bedside in the ICU; my husband spent every afternoon with me while I was in the hospital recovery unit; and my husband was my caretaker for months when we were finally able to return home.
I now have accurate empathy for my family, having spent a fraction of the time they devoted to me caring for my husband when illness landed him in the hospital recently and as we are navigating recovery at home.
Getting proper exercise, sleep, and nutrition has been a challenge, not withstanding the adage that you must take care of yourself in order to take care of someone else. “Put on your own oxygen mask first.” I have found myself relying on the wellness app and the online Connect community supported by Weight Watchers, of which I am a Lifetime member. The support of my friends and neighbors, especially my water workout posse The Mermaids and my writing group The Squirrels, has reinforced the importance of community in our lives.
I return to work on Amsterdam Strong newly informed and humbled by these experiences and very grateful to be able to share my story!
What I’m Reading
My friend, the educator and author James Nehring, has just published a new book. Everest and the Rest of Us: Cycling, Rowing, Trekking and the Quest for Meaning is a meditation on adventuring based on Jim’s real-life experiences cycling across the United States, rowing a home-made boat down the East Coast, and walking 500 miles along the Camino de Santiago.
I read this book to my husband while we were waiting for results in the hospital. Jim’s voice is candid and self-effacing, and we found ourselves laughing out loud at his experiences, as in when the sound of a rushing train during a storm turned out not to be a tornado but an actual midnight train running by his campsite. His thoughtful insights into having the privilege to undertake these solo journeys add a layer of contemplative meditation to Everest.
If you’ve ever been pulled by the attraction of something difficult–or if you’ve never in a million years considered such a thing–this book’s for you!
What I’m Watching
Like much of the world, I’m enthralled with Dolly Parton in the wake of the passing of the music icon. Her silver voice, from Jolene to I Will Always Love You to 9 to 5, is threaded through our past. Netflix’s touching Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings gathers eight of the singer’s songs into episodes–introduced by Dolly’s own stories, memories, and inspirations–that remind us that love is love. Was there ever a more giving performer?
Kumba’s Korner
Our rescue Lab, Kumba, and I have been a therapy team through the Alliance of Therapy Dogs for more than two years. We have visited Elegance at Lake Worth every week, where we engage with residents in the facility’s assisted living quarters and in the memory care unit. The empathetic and kind staff welcome us enthusiastically every time. Kumba’s super power is his calmness. We marvel at the chill dog he has become, his name an echo of the song “Kumbaya.”
J. K. (Kelly) Amerson López