Haunted by Transatlantica

Back in the fall of 1985, when I had only been in the United States a few weeks, I read a copy of Vanity Fair magazine that I'd found in the office I shared with several other grad students. One paragraph in the editorial in that particular magazine, written by Tina Brown, resonated enough with me even then that I photocopied it and kept it. I misplaced the photocopy at one point in one of my moves but I found it again today. Here are the words I wanted to keep:

In fact, once you've lived on both sides of the Atlantic, it's impossible to be content with either. One becomes haunted with the perfect place called Transatlantica, which is somewhere in between. Its population shares England's civility and America's energy, England's irony and America's optimism, England's coziness and America's breadth, England's sense of the past and America's belief in the future. Whichever side you settle, your sensibilities are forevermore on the frequent flier's program.