We may grow up on Christmas stories, where homecoming means are walking through the same front door, into the same living room with the same people waiting around the tree. But this guest interview reminds us that sometimes homecoming, especially at Christmas is far more complicated than that. Welcome to starting over in the USA, the Expat Woman's Guide to overcoming homesickness, embracing cultural differences, and creating a new home away from home. I'm Yolanda Sima. And after relocating six times, I know firsthand what it's like to start from scratch, feeling like both a foreign child and a foreign adult in a new world. In this episode, you'll hear why home isn't always where you started and how you'll know you are truly home. When we think of Christmas here, we are not talking about tinsel and trendy carols. We are talking about homecoming, the kind Dickens wrote about this is the the coming home that isn't about a postcode, but about returning to a place where we can bring our whole story, the accents we've picked up, the risks we've taken and still hear. You belong here. It's about a feeling of belonging..A longing to be welcome, to be forgiven, and to be seen. I'm resharing a lovely episode with guest Amy Dein Dean, and Amy is a business woman I have the best time just sitting and chatting with her., Amy is sharing her homecoming journey from. Leave in San Francisco for a life in England where she planted herself in the upper middle class society for over two decades. You've got to admire this woman's moxie. And as you listen, I am inviting you to think about your own homecoming story, the place the people. And the version of you that is so authentic, even if everything on the outside has changed. Amy, yes. Why don't you start with telling us a little bit about yourself? Oh my God. Where do I begin? And my English accent. English accent. You can do your us accent. And, It can even flip and flop as he wished. So my name is Amy and I was born and raised in San Francisco, California. And always had the ambition to live my life in England. I was a great Anglophile at a young age, because of my love of history. And I didn't know how I was going to wangle it, but I managed it. And I lived there for 24 years. Would you say you left your American side and completely immersed yourself in the whole life of being an English woman. Yes. Yes. One tries, but the English are not very good about letting you do that fully. So it was a bit challenging. The English never liked to let you forget where you are from and all you are. Really. Is that what you experienced? Oh my God. Yes. In what. Tell us about that. Tell. D just, they immediately hear your accent and they go, oh, you're a yank. What you do in either then? Oh, my gosh. Yeah they're completely fascinated by Americans and this is keep in mind this is a long time ago. I lived there from 1983, until 2000, about 2000. So 20 some odd years, 2000 to three. And now it's changed even again. Now that I've been back here for 20 years. But. They are always fascinated by Americans. In a good way. Usually in a good way, but sometimes there's always the little jab, and you Americans, you yanks. I'm like what the heck is, what would the yank bit. But they always like to lit. Turn the screw a little bit. They don't, oh, I love Americans. Oh my God. I love America. It's always, I love Florida. Oh, the sunny bits. Oh my God. Yeah. And but the sort of the mix, little micro aggressions and I would just go along with it or smile and go, what. Okay. So what made you stay though? Was it hard for you to live through that and experience that? And wasn't that difficult? Because of my sense of humor and me, just like what as the half of it went over my head anyway. Oh a long time to learn. Just as well. It took a while to learn all the nuances I went to university there and that, that was a real eye opener. Where did. Did you go to uni? I was at Oxford. Oh. What did you study it? One is it officer? Ops with one reads. Educate your home and little me. What did you read at Oxford? I read history at modeling college. And there's about 38 colleges at the university. And it's a whole tutorial system. It's a much different way of educating one at the university level and it worked well for me because I have dyslexia. And you you write a lot of papers. Yeah, read a lot at the Bodleian library. It was so much fun. I was completely immersed and it was way of course, before Harry Potter, I can't even say it how are you Potter? But it was very much like that. Sitting at high table. It college for dinners and it was really fun, but I was living in a bubble and a lot of people go to Oxford and Cambridge never want to leave because it's complete bubble life. At some point you've got to go. And then she going to be an academic and I wasn't clever enough to be one. And I did try to do a second degree. And my tutor said, absolutely not. You haven't got the personality for it. You need to go out and live your life because you've got too much personality. You had too much personality for Oxford? Yes. You They couldn't contain you? No. He said you absolutely need you. Live a life. He cannot be locked away in a library and the Ashmolean researching some skill painter that no one cares about. And you said, oh, yes. Thank you very much. I agree with you and off you went. oh, no, you didn't. Oh, I was devastated. I thought you knew, and this is something you learn, you should learn as a young person. Is that, this was what I thought my dream was. This is what I wanted to do. I worked really hard. And then they said, no, you can't do it. And with hindsight, of course, one realizes he's absolutely right. There's no way that I was cut out for it. But it would have been really hard and had items already hard. But, he said, you've got to go out and live a life and do something way more interesting than like you said, researching obscure French 18th century artists. So once he left Oxford, We will get onto the whole coming back to America and what that transition was like a little bit later. I'm just intrigued by an American girl in London, having studied at Oxford, what was your life like that once you left? How did you Swan around? I think growing up in San Francisco, my father worked for a British bank. And he would bring me back magazines, like Harpers And Queen and Tatler and teenage magazines. And you learn a lot from magazines, unfortunately, they're not around like they used to be, but yeah. Oh, my gosh. I learned everything I knew about the English culture from reading lots of different women's magazines and teenage magazines. Even in my twenties, I read fab 2 0 8 and take weightness in America. Some of the English teenage magazines. I can't remember anymore. Anyway. So I picked the world. I wanted to go towards. And what world was that? The upper middle class. And it's yes, of course. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yes. And because of being at Oxford knowing lots of kids who went to boarding schools, public schools. It was definitely the upper middle classes. How did you graft yourself in? If that's what you did. No. Yeah. Yes, I just play, Okay. I knew a girl who was in similar situation. She was an American. She didn't go to university there, but her ambition was to live in England and really fit right into the British upper classes. And her name. Where is she now? She was a friend of my cousin who was American and she was Californian. And she had this complete, really good English accent, almost as good as mine. And I was like, wait, What, who are you? You're American. The kind of questions people would ask me, but she faked it completely and never came out of it. I Did it as like theatrical and being funny and cheeky. Cause I use my sense of humor to navigate the world. And this girl was totally serious and completely obsessed with being English and being accepted by the people she chose to hang out with, which was definitely upper middle classes. And she was very impressive because she didn't go to school there, she didn't go to university. Somewhere in her psyche had the dream that I need to be here. Like she had to be in England and she fit right in. But at the end of the day, I don't think she was that happy because she wasn't really being true to herself. But I don't know, we lost track of her, but I just couldn't believe how I was go. How can you keep talking? She inspired you to do the same. Oh, my God. She put a full picture of herself in front of me that made me realize that that's not being true to yourself. So my whole English accent and my whole like, Oh, I know about the British culture. I know how to fit in and say, doing right things. What was just from an anthropology. Information and experiment for me. I never tried to fake it so much. Occasionally I'd do it for entertainment, like fake it, to pretend it, gosh. People would say you have the best American accent. I'm like, oh, Because you're American, yeah, but when I met you, I really thought you were English. No, I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. No. Totally. No, we were going to be friends, but that's okay because that's so cool because the funny thing is that I feel as though you you throw yourself in. Oh, totally. Yes. Yes. In order to live there in order to be accepted, right? And immerse yourself. In order to have real friends and just be comfortable and happy. It's difficult to have one foot in and the other foot in some other country. Yeah, yes. Yes. And it was survival mode in a way, but in such a superficial way, because it, wasn't very difficult. It wasn't like, I was ooohh I have to to survive here. It was my choice. Yes. But it just was interesting seeing this one gal who was, we were on the same track trying to make our lives in the UK and wanting to be accepted. And we both immersed ourselves in it, but I took it less seriously. And I don't know if it's because I felt more secure in who I was I don't know, but this poor girl just, she had a rough time. No. People totally just assumed she was English, she thought that she would have this type of life. The movie? Romcom!. Yes. And I don't know if she's still living this life and she's living this lie. It's not really it's her reality, I just look at her and go, what. Why would you do that? Were you successful in adapting to that life over there and what you accepted by the people you chose to build a tribe among. Yes. I feel like I was very much but always oh, that's my American friend that I haven't heard a lot. Oh, Amy's American. Oh yeah. She's a little crazy. Or, she says what's on her mind, which is not very English. Yeah, I never thought I'd ever leave. Because I was so comfortable there. And so what caused you to leave your adopted home? England. You really want to know that I do want to know. Oh, my God. Chris and I lived on a fallen road. And London in 19. 99 in the late nineties, really, is just what it is today is not, it's so different and more vibrant, more interesting and more dynamic back then it was getting a little stale. And the last thing that happened was Chris was walking the dogs at 11 o'clock at night. We lived near the Chelsea football ground and the Chelsea game was going on, and people were leaving and oh boy, and the drinking, the amount of alcohol crazy. Yeah. Anyway, Chris was trying to cross the street, but the results traffic and there was a dude. In our doorway with his trousers down and relieving himself, shall we say. No. Which people do alternate, either getting sick or peeing on the street. The whole football. Drunk. The partying, lose your mind, talking about the women. Walking around deep. We show it to him. But I actually miss seeing those crazy. It's about being back at home. Yeah. It's funny. Now we it's amusing, but this guy was doing that in. Chris's all you like trying to get his attention. And he turned around and flipped Chris off and just zip draws us off and went up the road. And Chris came in the front door and yelled up to him. He goes, that's it. We're leaving this damn country and within three or four months, we were gone. And you came back here. And we came to San Francisco. So what was San Francisco like when you came back? Because you had left San Francisco at age, what? 18, 18. And you had now come back married. Yes. Yes. And you're in your, late through early, like 40, so I missed about 24 years of American culture. I came back for the holidays and stuff. Yeah. People always talk about some of these TV shows. I'm like, yeah. I don't know it, Seinfeld, I only caught on to like in 2000, but so it was a new beginning reading. When he came back, you had to reestablish your friendships. Yes. And start complete new ones because the people I'd left in San Francisco were high school friends and they had obviously moved on, moved away. How did you go about reestablishing yourself? As an American girl who had moved away from America, immersed herself in all things British. I loved it. Flourished in it. What was that like? So our ambition to come back here was to be antique dealers. Chris was an antique dealer. I worked in the film businesses. Prop buyer's set dress. I've worked for Ralph Lauren as a display director. So my background after university was visual merchandise. Yeah. Yeah, kinda and Chris was an antique dealer and knew 18th and 19th century ceramics furniture, glassware, everything. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, really great. And San Francisco had a vibrant antique community. And so we imported a ton of things from France and England, and our ambition was to open a retail store, antique shop, which we did within a year or two, I think. And it was called La Place du Solei. yes. Because I had some. Yes, exactly. Cause I had my godmother who's American had a famous shop in San Francisco in the seventies called La Ville Du Soleil. Okay. And it was such off the charts and incredible retail experience. And she was a real pioneer in this kind of concept and that's a whole nother compensation anyway. So we opened this little shop in Russian hill on Polk street. And the community in Russian hill really became our new community. And we made a lot of friends in that neighborhood. We were there for eight years, but we didn't have a child. You have a kid, you send them to school and you meet the parents and you're like, okay, there's your new group of friends? So this was local neighborhood people. A few of my old high school friends, maybe, not many. So just starting over. As a business owner. So you, would you say you connected with other business owners? No. The people come and spend money with us. Those are the people you connected with? Yeah coming into your shop?. What you just chatted them up. Yeah. And you're going to be my new friend sorta kinda, I didn't have to tell them. That's. A little bit to frank but in a roundabout way. We established relationships with people because when you're selling antiques, You got to really schmooze him and tell him why they need to buy instead of so it's the gift of the gab. It's the salesmen in us. Chris and I are both really good salespeople. I'm a little more forceful. Chris is more with his English accent. He could tell him. In fact, when I met Chris I I remember at an antique show that in London because they worked for Ralph Lauren. I used to buy a lot of stuff for Ralph Lauren. And I remember going his. His ex-wife, who's a lovely lady and a great friend. She used to, I used to buy things from her, but one time she wasn't there that weekend. And so I was like, who's that dude? And the, as soon as you start talking, they're going to make you buy something. Your F they don't make it, but I remember picking something up and going. That's interesting. And then he takes it from. And he said, oh, this is neat in century. Wallet or something and it is. Looking at this lovely thing. And I was like, So much time talking about the damn wallet, I felt obligated to purchase it. And then. And I bought it. And then about six years later, he comes over to my flat and there it is. And this is a little vignette I had. Little antiquey things and he picks it up and he goes, you bought this for me, not with that accent. Of course. You pulled that from me. And I was like, oh my God, I did. That was you. I remember I felt like I had to buy it from you. And I was like, oh my God. Yeah, I still have it. Where the hell is that thing? Anyway, but he was a good salesman. So of course we are, we would sit down with people, have a cup of tea. We chat about the 18th century, heavily legs on a piece of furniture. And then they'd say, oh, I'm going to have that mind living because antique furniture is the most sustainable way. So here's my next question. I know. I go off on a diatribe. Sorry. I love going up the garden part. But the back of the house and down again, Yeah, cause it's fun. It's enjoyable. Please don't stop doing that. As long as I'm not boring. Definitely not boring anyone. Okay. So here's the question. Yeah. Where is home? For you. In my heart now I'm teasing. What you mean? Yeah, it's a little crap, man. Where's my home physically. Yeah. Oh, yes. What was your sense of home? Where do you feel you belong? That's a really good question and it's rather difficult, but now I've been here for 20 years. Oh my God. Stop. With the English accent. Okay. Yeah. You can't help yourself because I feel like it's in your genes, you are supposed to be English, Amy. Leave it alone. And that's why you have this tea shop we'll talk about tin pump at your tea shop and just the movement. So carry on. Tell me about your sense of home and where you feel you belong. Oh, my God. That's like really deep. I don't know if I can come up with an answer. Yeah. San Francisco, I have such an affinity, like when you're from San Francisco, you can't be like, you're so spoiled San Francisco is different now, but. And it's such a small town and we, our family has been here a long time but then being away from it for so long. Everything's new again. But now I'm a little bit more now we live in Marine county, which is a whole nother world, but do I feel super English. It's I've been away for so long from England and we go back to one time, two times a year. We used to do even more. And so I would get my fix and my kick, but I don't know. I guess I'm American. But that's just. We'll be offended all you Americans. It's not that bad. I knew, but now once you've seen life on the other side, I tell you we need to take a little break Here's the first takeaway, why homecoming isn't always where you started. The heart of Christmas isn't that we go back to the state we were in, it's about finding a place where we can bring our whole story, the accents we've picked up, the risks we've taken, and the many ways that we have. Like Amy she's embracing her experience of having lived as a British upper class woman. Despite all of the challenges she returns married as a business woman, a community leader, so much older and wiser. When I return as an expat woman to places that I call home, I still feel a sense of belonging, but. I'm not emotionally or psychologically where I used to be. There has been growth, there has been joy, there's been suffering, but ultimately. I don't need to demonstrate to that I'm still the same. Love the change. Salute the journey. Second takeaway. True home is where you are seen and accepted just as you are Amy's life across continents shows just how powerful and fragile that feeling can be. In England, she was the American friend. A little bit loud, a little bit different, always slightly outside the norm, but yet deeply woven into her tribe. Think of every great Christmas story, whether it's Scrooge facing his past, the prodigal son returning home to his father, the turning point is never really just the location, but it's always about the moment they are seen, where they're forgiven, accepted and loved. That is what makes it a homecoming. That's it from me today. I am still in England with the family just for a few more days, but I'm gonna tell you what I'm really enjoying right now it's the sight and sound of all the school kids huddle together in groups doing their Christmas shopping together. The atmosphere just feels special. There's an expectation in the air. It feels like Christmas. It sounds like Christmas. And you know what? With all these mince pies everywhere, it tastes like Christmas too. Bye-bye.