This world is not my home
As a child I dutifully stood with my classmates and, hand over my heart, recited the Pledge of Allegiance with patriotic fervor. In fact, watching the fifth graders paint a mural based on "America the Beautiful" earned me the ire of my third-grade teacher who grew weary of me constantly ignoring her at the front of the classroom so I could look over my shoulder and watch in wonder as purple mountains and amber waves of grain appeared from the mixed tempura paints reserved for the upper-classmen. Eventually, she simply came to my desk - the type with the desk top and chair attached - picked it up, with me in it, and turned me around so that I had a full panoramic view of my country, "land that I love." I had to spend the rest of the day looking over my shoulder as she wrote lessons on the chalkboard.