Americans move often; yet American creative experience bursts with a sense of place: Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Pat Conroy’s Southern based novels, Grant Wood’s painting, American Gothic, Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies. Perhaps because we change place so often (including original immigration journeys), we are better able to identify place and our yearning for it.

Sometimes a sense of place means alienation. Some of us are homeless. Others of us have a physical address but lack family roots. Career moves, military service in strange countries, and fast paced generational changes contribute to rootlessness. We can be lost in time as well as in place.

Who do we belong to? Who are our family? What does our rootlessness do to our children? Where do we go when it’s time to die? How do we care for each other when we are constantly changing place?