When I was a rebellious 16-year-old in the 1960s, struggling through high school in a small town in America, my parents sent me to live with friends in England for six months, hoping I would shape up, or at least give them a break.
In return, the English family sent their eldest son, Mark, to our home. It wasn’t a formal exchange program, but remarkably, the schools didn’t have a problem with this spontaneous arrangement. My mother had been pen pals during World War II with the English mother’s brother when they were teenagers, sending their secrets in pale blue aerogrammes across the Atlantic each week.
Some people think a little rebellion is a good thing, although that adage does not apply to teens or their parents in the throes of such insurrection. The English parents and their two younger children immediately welcomed me, and although I enjoyed calling sweaters jumpers, remembered to say pavement instead of sidewalk, and quickly learned to ask for the loo when I needed to use the bathroom, I missed my American friends, school, and, yes, my family. Our aerogrammes across the Atlantic sustained me, and I cherish the memories held in those fragile pages today.
In London, I gravitated toward other outsiders, and after a lonely start, I became friends with a Turkish girl in my class. On the bus ride back to her house after school, we would take turns drawing peace signs in ink on each other’s arms, and her mother would greet us with baklava and small cups of rich coffee.
I soon learned to navigate the tube and took frequent trips to the British Museum, The National Gallery, and The Tate. My English hosts insisted on vigorous daily walks on the heath, which I first resisted, then grew to love. It was also where I experienced my first hesitant kiss with an English boy. Eventually, my loneliness turned into a certain kind of independence, and I gained a love of both art and daily walks.
Back home, Mark went ice-skating with my siblings and fell in love with American music. Our families continued with these teen exchanges the following year when another English son, Adam, came to stay with my cousins. He was thrilled to be going to a coed school after his strict all-boys one back in London.
At the time, we were aware our lives had changed, but only later understood how living away from our countries and families had forever influenced the direction we would take and decisions we would make moving forward. Adam returned to the United States for college and ended up marrying an American woman. My late husband was from the Netherlands, and I’ve continued my love of museums and daily walks, which began when I was that confused teenager in London.
Last year I attended Mark’s 70th birthday party, a weekend celebration in the South of England, with vigorous hikes along the coast with views of the Isle of Wight followed by delicious meals with a lively group of family and friends, who now live all over the world. At his birthday dinner, where Mark’s band performed original songs, he made a toast to my late mother, for introducing him to different kinds of music that still enrich his life.
I can’t say I became a less rebellious teenager when I returned home, but I wish I could thank my parents for having the foresight to send me across the ocean to expand my narrow world.
Now both families have a new generation on either side of the Atlantic. By the time they’re old enough to travel alone on their own transcontinental adventures —some 10 years from now — they’ll probably be making video calls home from who-knows-what mobile devices. Still, I hope they’ll take long walks, be delighted by new kinds of food and music—or even draw peace signs on one another’s arms.
Patty Dann is a frequent contributor to Globe Magazine. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.
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