What to do! What to do! That one professor for whom you can do nothing right. It's all a C, whether you give it A effort or not. Well then Miss J-, if nothing will satisfy you, then I shall satisfy myself. The following is an essay I wrote over the course of the night (along with two other essays for the same class) about a book that nearly killed me. Whatever you do, don't let Kajri Jain near a publisher. She does not know how to write. Her doomful tome, God's in the Bazaar, is a calamity of word wreckage. You know it's bad when I have to start a vocabulary list; it's worse when I stop because the list waxes superfluously interminable. Unfortunately I was assigned a paper on the tex; fortunately only four pages. I don't think I have ever struggled so much with so short a page length. Between 7pm last night and 12am this morning I agonized to organize a worthy outline. It's a bit of a challenge when you haven't understood more than say, every 20th word you read. When the clock struck twelve I abandoned all reason - why be reasonable with the unreasonable? - and took to inventing a paper on the whim of my thoughts. I even flipped through the book, snatching quotes that at least vaguely supported my non-argument. It's more of an imaginative musing. What can I say, I'm a creative individual. I might have drawn a cartoon to go with one of the other papers I finished last night...I might have...
- The Transversal of Indian Calendar Art through Spaces and Between Values -
...a response to God's in the Bazaar
Indian calendar art by its nature as an art form is an expression, like movement, of something larger and more complex than its individual elements, or even the configuration of those elements. It is an example of how a realized art piece not only fulfills the role and expectations of its creator, but how it passes through several other spaces, fulfills other roles, and takes on other values throughout its individual existence as well as the greater timeline of Art the concept.
Like movement, Indian calendar art is a thing: it occupies a space; it has palpable features; it is a creative articulation. Beyond these obvious parallels, Indian calendar art and choreography represent pieces of a greater story, fragments of a larger whole. Individual motions and images do tell vignettes of their own. However, they are inherently describing something greater than their individual elements or even the configuration of those elements. Calendar art and choreography are viewed as “things,” though one is an object and the other an action. Each one acts as a representative: one, a painting depicting deities on paper also marked by the days and nights as defined by our solar and lunar cycles; the other, a series of momentary images portraying relationships. Yet the two are more than substantive entities. Both the complete image and the choreography link to and grow from a historical framework of theoretical cultural values that, over time, are translated with variation into these material art form expressions. Jain maintains that, “any image is the bearer of a multitude of possible meanings, both potential and actual, that vary over time and in different contexts” (Jain, 319).
Clearly, Indian calendar art is not “just there;” it and other art forms are products that exist because of the particular values in a culture and, in their realized state, they move through the many spaces of the corollary society. The first, though not the greater, part of calendar art’s existence within the larger Indian culture passes simultaneously in a number of spaces later contradicted by opposite or “unlike” spaces: public and private, sacred and secular, Eastern and Western, traditional and modern, artistic/aesthetic and commercial/popular. Within these contrasting spaces, it fulfills different roles and takes on different values depending upon its role within a given space.
Calendar art’s dance through these spaces begins in the minds of men - publishers, artists, and upper level businessmen - where it is purely cerebral. As is necessary to build any marketing strategy (such as a Kellog’s campaign to sell more corn flakes), publishing companies must research their potential and existing market to determine the values and desires of the members of these markets. Based upon that knowledge, and any other determinable patterns as understood through the research, publishers are able to not only cater to taste, but also create desires and therefore expand the market; calendar art is something everyone participates in. The walls of each home, each shop, each office, each factory, each prayer room bear witness to the fact. Calendar art is, at this stage of its existence, merely as a commodity, or a potential commodity: mass produced and capital-driven, a process marked by an interest in commerce and studies of popular culture in order to create mass taste as well as cater to localized taste.
Niche markets exist to be reached or are created based on these localized tastes, defined typically by color choice and combination, subject matter (e.g. local landscapes, deities, historical and political figures), stylistic rendering (realism versus the fantastical), and other artistic variances. The art of the South, for example, is gaudier and mostly considered low art or the art of “the common man” in comparison to the finer, more delicate Sivakasi prints (Jain, 184). This “shouting” look is therefore considered a part of the commercial space.
Yet this is more than a box of cereal, which holds no sacred value at any point in its existence. It seems ironic that though Southern art is commercial, it still can and often does function in the sacred space as well. Corn flakes meet their end and their beginning in secularity – baking, boxing, and mindless crunching at the breakfast table. Calendars, Indian calendars, do more than hang on a wall. Images may begin in the minds of men and be rendered by men, but everyone buys calendar art from that open, public setting of the bazaar and removes it to the privacy of the home where, for many, that icon will serve as a touchstone, the materialization of a spiritual being to which one can bow and pray. That is the treatment worthy of a god. These images are a face to which a worshipper can turn to pay homage, supplicate, or meditate. Centuries of worshipful practice lie beneath present attitudes of respect.
As indicated above, a shift in space correlates to a shift in value. That shift begins in the time between when the seeking eyes settles on the image and the mind behind that eye determines to make the purchase. Someone has seen it and placed value and faith in it. Its purchase actually increases the image’s value in many instances because once in the private realm, the image receives honor and respect - treatment indicative that this art is seen and valued as more much than the sum of its parts – mere paper and ink. Only paper and ink, aided by an artist’s hand, came together to create a representation of something greater than human. The image is more than shapes, lines, and coloring; it is a deity, physical elements culminating in a spiritual being imaged on paper. And more than imaging a spiritual entity, the renderance bears undertones and overtones of cultural values as they are translated into imagery.
Calendar art’s ubiquity as well as its mass production and overflow from the bazaar raise questions regarding proper treatment of the sacred material. In private spaces there is no doubt of reverence, but in the journey from easel to factory floor to wall to worship the images pass through multiple value status that imply treatment greatly in contrast to that of an revered icon. The author, however, recounts Igor Kopytoff’s assertion that “in the course of its ‘cultural biography’ an object can move in and out of the commodity state” (Jain, 226). Despite their brief habitation of the commercial realm, Jain allays the fear that they run the risk of remaining permanently in the unnaturally secular space. “The sacredness of the iconic image is suspended as it is produced and traded (on the artist’s easel or the factory floor, in transit, or while displayed in a catalogue, shop, or stall), but it is able to return once the image leaves the realm of circulation” (Jain, 226).
The fact that art is indicative of a culture’s values and can flex and move through the menagerie of societal spaces, changing roles and gaining or losing value attests to the super-reality it offers as both a means of escape from and enlightenment of that culture. Jain explains that through the evocation of divine presences in the everyday, calendar art achieves “inculcation of a devotional attitude by bringing the gods to affective life” (Jain, 202). For though the color, subject choices, and scale of much Indian calendar art may not accurately reflect the reality of ordinary humanity, their arrangement and portrayal offers a new realism in technicolor.
Monday, December 20, 2010
As Though Before a Mirror - Reflecting on the Challenges of First-Time Fieldwork
This semester I took a class in visual anthropology, hoping to learn the practice of ethnographic film. To my disappointment, we spent only the last 2 and a half weeks on that unit. My group visited and volunteered at a soup kitchen in Amherst during those two weeks while taking footage, conducting interviews, and participating in the general flow of things - from pot washing to cooking to chatting over dinner. The following is my essay on the piece. As part of our classroom agreement, the film is not available for viewing by the public. I hope my next one is though!
- As Though Before a Mirror: Reflecting on the Challenges of First-Time Fieldwork -
The three of us sat awkwardly at table 8. People came through the door alone and in familial bunches, settling at tables with pastry and coffee while they waited for the main meal to be served. There was some exchange of greeting between a few of the guests, a nod of the head or “hello.” The comfortability was quiet; everyone seemed to know each other or at least be familiar with the presence of the others. Still we sat at table 8, not sure of what to do next. Toting around a camera and interviewing strangers about their lives seemed like an appealing idea eight months ago when I signed up for the class. Today it felt bewildering. Supplied with digital and video cameras, a tripod, a voice recorder, notebooks, pens, and some theoretical knowledge of ethnographic film, we ventured forth with the mandate to extend a microphone to an underprivileged, unheard from community.
The afternoon before, our group had gathered around another table not far away to brainstorm filmic options. Pressed for time and short on ideas, we settled on what felt like an uncertain choice, a last resort.
“There’s a soup kitchen in Amherst,” offered Tenzin. We all looked down at the small round table, fidgeted with our nails, and thought a moment. I recalled going to food pantries during some touch economic times in the early '90s when I was still quite little. But a soup kitchen? I had never been to one of those. I worried it might feel uncomfortable. We left a message on the program director’s answering machine – I gave my phone number twice - and agreed to meet the next morning at 10:00. Convened in the observatory parking lot the following morning, still not having heard from the kitchen’s director, we decided to risk it and drove away to Amherst with a map on the dash.
I could supply the reader with a ten-page narrative of the team’s filming adventures over the course of the following days - typical fieldwork issues: relationship and trust building, the discomfort of participation, ethical limitations, etc. To address these issues is, however, redundant in light of the concurrent papers of my two colleagues. Instead of a broad route, I have chosen a deep one that will address the two challenges that resonated the most for me throughout the extent of the project.
REFLEXIVITY
My first challenge appeared unexpectedly in the form of the acute self-awareness that overcame me earlier that Saturday morning. Still warm in green fleece pajamas, I rifled through my dresser searching for something vague and neutral to wear to the soup kitchen; I spent so long hunting that I missed breakfast - how about that for adding to the reality of participation. Inquiring of my vibrant closet I found only what I hope to find on a typical morning: bright colors and complimentary cuts; nothing seemed achromatic enough. For today I did not want logos or brands, school paraphernalia, not even the names of teams or events sported across my back or chest. Generally I do not enjoy acting as a walking billboard, and particularly not on an expedition such as this. Typical, close-fitting block colored tops would not do either. For whatever reason, I felt unusually aware of my sexuality and wished to prevent any potential distraction my body might create, even silent objectification. Eventually I settled on a loose pair of jeans, well-worn canvas shoes; for once I pushed the black Danscos back under my bed, not wanting to be any taller in the hope of making myself more approachable. In the bottom drawer I found an old white T-shirt I stole from a brother; over top of that, my mom’s least favorite sweatshirt. I enjoy the unraveling cuffs. Loose jeans and black and white on top - very neutral, very unlike me.
Then came the trouble of earrings. I almost always wear earrings, but having lost my studs, the next plainest thing was a small pair of gold hoops - fake gold, but they looked, well, weird paired with blandness. Still, I would not forgo the earrings. A girl dressed in boyish clothing with androgenously short hair - I felt the need to clarify my orientation, hoping to avoid one less assumption when people found out where I go to school. My own assumption was that apparent neutrality would make me approachable and safe for the people I was preparing to interview. I hoped they would say more of themselves without any distraction from me. Responses might depend upon how participants observed me. The more I could blend in and become a seemingly natural participator, the less alien my presence and the more acceptable my friendship. But was I just inventing a ‘gap’ between people, confusing it for the gap between circumstances?
Throughout the day I noticed how comfortable the clothes felt. My wardrobe did not say much about me for once and I was enjoying it. That comfortability - it was as though I had temporarily veiled my sexuality. It was a new freedom. A relieving freedom. These past two summers in Ethiopia have worn me out. I worked hard to be seen from the inside out. Unfortunately, my general experience was one such that I was not only objectified almost everywhere I went, but loudly and several times physically. Residual responses from those months keep me, even now, a little on edge. I still live with the thought turning over in the back of my mind, “Wait for it, waaait for it.”
HOLISM
The premise of our ethnographic project was to amplify the voice of an unheard population. Ironically, we worked with a community where many “refused” the opportunity to be seen or heard because many wished to preserve personal privacy. Consequently, the range of our footage is drastically narrow. This visual limitation intimates limits on holism in the final piece. We attempted to compensate for the lack of movement and faces with a series of stills, however only a few individuals agreed to being photographed.
The trouble was not so much the images themselves, but the underlying issue of relationship. We had no prior knowledge of these people or they of us. There was no connection and if we were going to make this film, we would have to build trust among the people first. Our method of establishing contacts evolved from simple conversation to actually working in the kitchen and cleaning up afterwards. Becoming a part of the work immediately pulled us a little closer to the center of the circle. Still, I learned how to ease in the topic of the project the hard way a more than once. There is a fine line between building rapport and holding back actual intentions.
On the second visit, I sat at a table with two elderly, well-educated men discussing the merits of women’s college. It had only been a few minutes, but we were enjoying the debate. Seeing a group member making her way to our table with the voice recorder in hand, I panicked inwardly. It was too early to introduce my intent but I did not wish for either of the guests to feel misled when my group member sat down with an obvious piece of recording equipment in hand. There was nothing to do but blurt it out, which I did as graciously as I could. Immediately one gentleman sat back and crossed his arms over his chest; his lively expression from a moment before disappeared. I had tripped the breaker. The instance lingers in my mind and even now I mull over how I might have prevented severing the beginning of that relationship, mostly because it bothered me that I had offended the gentleman’s humanity.
Over the course of four visits we made a number of friends and were accepted into the wider community of the soup kitchen. Even so, most of the people willing to interview in some capacity were the people who warmed up to us the first day. We recorded video as well as audio interviews and once jotted down an interview on paper for someone uncomfortable with being recorded in any capacity. Protecting the privacy of participants is all-important but not easy. We quickly recognized how limited footage severely separates how we observed the environment as compared to how our film viewers will. They see brief moments, no whole acts or whole bodies as we did - not even snippets of guests interacting with one another. How does one obtain images when people do not wish to be seen? One cannot. As for those who agree, their image portrayals cannot be viewed in a fully natural environment either because we could not film their ordinary activity and interactions at the sight.
Heider suggests doing fieldwork first and filming second because once the anthropologist returns she has only a limited supply of footage (citation). Fair enough, however since we began the project as strangers, there was not enough time to form relationships and establish contacts before filming began. We learned as the camera rolled, as our raw footage reveals. The very first interview (Marcy) is painful for me to watch. Reviewing the footage, the noticeable dis-ease apparent amongst all of us makes me feel more uncomfortable than when I actually stood in the hall interviewing Her.
Because of the privacy constraints, the “wholeness” imaged in the film is very much a “chosen wholeness,” meaning participants where shown or included as wholly as they wished to be. Unfortunately this stilted result raises questions regarding accuracy and expression. Can parts so limited still convey the greater whole witnessed by myself and the other two project members? Perhaps had we had a semester to strengthen our relationships we might have achieved more footage, but we may not have.
CONCLUSIONS
For the time being this was all we could capture. Little film makes for an odd film, a product I had not anticipated. It also prevented us from making many artistic choices simply because we did not often have the choice as to what could be shown and what could be told. Constraints, however, are welcome because on an artistic level limitations demand creativity. On an anthropological level I suppose they are a hindrance of proper portrayal, however I do not know enough to say as such for certain. The experience on the whole was compellingly uncomfortable and prompted me to reflect both inwardly and outwardly, as though before a mirror.
- As Though Before a Mirror: Reflecting on the Challenges of First-Time Fieldwork -
The three of us sat awkwardly at table 8. People came through the door alone and in familial bunches, settling at tables with pastry and coffee while they waited for the main meal to be served. There was some exchange of greeting between a few of the guests, a nod of the head or “hello.” The comfortability was quiet; everyone seemed to know each other or at least be familiar with the presence of the others. Still we sat at table 8, not sure of what to do next. Toting around a camera and interviewing strangers about their lives seemed like an appealing idea eight months ago when I signed up for the class. Today it felt bewildering. Supplied with digital and video cameras, a tripod, a voice recorder, notebooks, pens, and some theoretical knowledge of ethnographic film, we ventured forth with the mandate to extend a microphone to an underprivileged, unheard from community.
The afternoon before, our group had gathered around another table not far away to brainstorm filmic options. Pressed for time and short on ideas, we settled on what felt like an uncertain choice, a last resort.
“There’s a soup kitchen in Amherst,” offered Tenzin. We all looked down at the small round table, fidgeted with our nails, and thought a moment. I recalled going to food pantries during some touch economic times in the early '90s when I was still quite little. But a soup kitchen? I had never been to one of those. I worried it might feel uncomfortable. We left a message on the program director’s answering machine – I gave my phone number twice - and agreed to meet the next morning at 10:00. Convened in the observatory parking lot the following morning, still not having heard from the kitchen’s director, we decided to risk it and drove away to Amherst with a map on the dash.
I could supply the reader with a ten-page narrative of the team’s filming adventures over the course of the following days - typical fieldwork issues: relationship and trust building, the discomfort of participation, ethical limitations, etc. To address these issues is, however, redundant in light of the concurrent papers of my two colleagues. Instead of a broad route, I have chosen a deep one that will address the two challenges that resonated the most for me throughout the extent of the project.
REFLEXIVITY
My first challenge appeared unexpectedly in the form of the acute self-awareness that overcame me earlier that Saturday morning. Still warm in green fleece pajamas, I rifled through my dresser searching for something vague and neutral to wear to the soup kitchen; I spent so long hunting that I missed breakfast - how about that for adding to the reality of participation. Inquiring of my vibrant closet I found only what I hope to find on a typical morning: bright colors and complimentary cuts; nothing seemed achromatic enough. For today I did not want logos or brands, school paraphernalia, not even the names of teams or events sported across my back or chest. Generally I do not enjoy acting as a walking billboard, and particularly not on an expedition such as this. Typical, close-fitting block colored tops would not do either. For whatever reason, I felt unusually aware of my sexuality and wished to prevent any potential distraction my body might create, even silent objectification. Eventually I settled on a loose pair of jeans, well-worn canvas shoes; for once I pushed the black Danscos back under my bed, not wanting to be any taller in the hope of making myself more approachable. In the bottom drawer I found an old white T-shirt I stole from a brother; over top of that, my mom’s least favorite sweatshirt. I enjoy the unraveling cuffs. Loose jeans and black and white on top - very neutral, very unlike me.
Then came the trouble of earrings. I almost always wear earrings, but having lost my studs, the next plainest thing was a small pair of gold hoops - fake gold, but they looked, well, weird paired with blandness. Still, I would not forgo the earrings. A girl dressed in boyish clothing with androgenously short hair - I felt the need to clarify my orientation, hoping to avoid one less assumption when people found out where I go to school. My own assumption was that apparent neutrality would make me approachable and safe for the people I was preparing to interview. I hoped they would say more of themselves without any distraction from me. Responses might depend upon how participants observed me. The more I could blend in and become a seemingly natural participator, the less alien my presence and the more acceptable my friendship. But was I just inventing a ‘gap’ between people, confusing it for the gap between circumstances?
Throughout the day I noticed how comfortable the clothes felt. My wardrobe did not say much about me for once and I was enjoying it. That comfortability - it was as though I had temporarily veiled my sexuality. It was a new freedom. A relieving freedom. These past two summers in Ethiopia have worn me out. I worked hard to be seen from the inside out. Unfortunately, my general experience was one such that I was not only objectified almost everywhere I went, but loudly and several times physically. Residual responses from those months keep me, even now, a little on edge. I still live with the thought turning over in the back of my mind, “Wait for it, waaait for it.”
HOLISM
The premise of our ethnographic project was to amplify the voice of an unheard population. Ironically, we worked with a community where many “refused” the opportunity to be seen or heard because many wished to preserve personal privacy. Consequently, the range of our footage is drastically narrow. This visual limitation intimates limits on holism in the final piece. We attempted to compensate for the lack of movement and faces with a series of stills, however only a few individuals agreed to being photographed.
The trouble was not so much the images themselves, but the underlying issue of relationship. We had no prior knowledge of these people or they of us. There was no connection and if we were going to make this film, we would have to build trust among the people first. Our method of establishing contacts evolved from simple conversation to actually working in the kitchen and cleaning up afterwards. Becoming a part of the work immediately pulled us a little closer to the center of the circle. Still, I learned how to ease in the topic of the project the hard way a more than once. There is a fine line between building rapport and holding back actual intentions.
On the second visit, I sat at a table with two elderly, well-educated men discussing the merits of women’s college. It had only been a few minutes, but we were enjoying the debate. Seeing a group member making her way to our table with the voice recorder in hand, I panicked inwardly. It was too early to introduce my intent but I did not wish for either of the guests to feel misled when my group member sat down with an obvious piece of recording equipment in hand. There was nothing to do but blurt it out, which I did as graciously as I could. Immediately one gentleman sat back and crossed his arms over his chest; his lively expression from a moment before disappeared. I had tripped the breaker. The instance lingers in my mind and even now I mull over how I might have prevented severing the beginning of that relationship, mostly because it bothered me that I had offended the gentleman’s humanity.
Over the course of four visits we made a number of friends and were accepted into the wider community of the soup kitchen. Even so, most of the people willing to interview in some capacity were the people who warmed up to us the first day. We recorded video as well as audio interviews and once jotted down an interview on paper for someone uncomfortable with being recorded in any capacity. Protecting the privacy of participants is all-important but not easy. We quickly recognized how limited footage severely separates how we observed the environment as compared to how our film viewers will. They see brief moments, no whole acts or whole bodies as we did - not even snippets of guests interacting with one another. How does one obtain images when people do not wish to be seen? One cannot. As for those who agree, their image portrayals cannot be viewed in a fully natural environment either because we could not film their ordinary activity and interactions at the sight.
Heider suggests doing fieldwork first and filming second because once the anthropologist returns she has only a limited supply of footage (citation). Fair enough, however since we began the project as strangers, there was not enough time to form relationships and establish contacts before filming began. We learned as the camera rolled, as our raw footage reveals. The very first interview (Marcy) is painful for me to watch. Reviewing the footage, the noticeable dis-ease apparent amongst all of us makes me feel more uncomfortable than when I actually stood in the hall interviewing Her.
Because of the privacy constraints, the “wholeness” imaged in the film is very much a “chosen wholeness,” meaning participants where shown or included as wholly as they wished to be. Unfortunately this stilted result raises questions regarding accuracy and expression. Can parts so limited still convey the greater whole witnessed by myself and the other two project members? Perhaps had we had a semester to strengthen our relationships we might have achieved more footage, but we may not have.
CONCLUSIONS
For the time being this was all we could capture. Little film makes for an odd film, a product I had not anticipated. It also prevented us from making many artistic choices simply because we did not often have the choice as to what could be shown and what could be told. Constraints, however, are welcome because on an artistic level limitations demand creativity. On an anthropological level I suppose they are a hindrance of proper portrayal, however I do not know enough to say as such for certain. The experience on the whole was compellingly uncomfortable and prompted me to reflect both inwardly and outwardly, as though before a mirror.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Travelitch
I've got it bad - really bad this time. At least last year it took seven months for the infection to spread. This time it took two. Do the math. I've only been back since the first of September. Three months away + two months back = very agitated. That's a terrible ratio of long-term satisfaction. I'm ready to travel again.
I'm so ready that perusing plane tickets is my happy hour. When I got frustrated by expense and my duty to school I got a hair cut instead. I called the salon and fifteen minutes later found myself in the shop saying, "Here's my head. Have fun!" The excitement of snazzy hair hasn't worn off, but it cannot mask an even deeper desire to walk the face of the Earth. Wander.
Lindsey and I went out early this Saturday morning. We drove part way to Northampton, then parked and walked the remaining distance to a quiet country cafe at the base of Mount Holyoke. Barstow's serves organic eggs and meats, home baked goods, and twenty-five cent coffee refills. It's where we spent our Mountain Day after summitting at 8:30 in the morning. It's where we spend many of our Saturday mornings too. I like sitting at the "bar," a red counter that runs the length of one wall. Broken up by series of oblong windows, it makes me feel like I'm watching a movie in HD 3-D or observing the world from a fish bowl or airplane. It's my safe observatory.
Nothing feels too hard on mornings like that when you have daylight on your side and hours of possibility. The freshness of late fall air zings your nostrils and your throat at the intake of breath; you know you're alive. We worked, drank pumpkin spice coffee and fogbuster, and worked some more: Lindsey on her grad school apps and me on the emails and papers conspiring to take over my life. Rumors of lunch rumbled in our stomachs at half twelve. By one o'clock we had repacked our computers and notebooks to begin meandering back to the car.
Lindsey's cell phone rang. It was her sister. I walked behind along the mostly quiet highway, sneaking to stand freely in the middle of the road until the next car came. It's one of the adventure games I used to play growing up in nowhere Massachusetts. Hardly any cars ever passed along one of the only two paved roads of my childhood town. Sometimes I walked up my dirt road to stand in the middle of route 57. Arms spread wide, head tilted back, I felt free - a rebel - standing alone in the open space of the "highway." After some years of this, I even started lying down on the yellow stripes just to feel the exhilarating rush of danger. I would stare at the sky - the night sky, the morning sky, the afternoon glow. And when the rumble of an oncoming car vibrated the hot black beneath me, I scrambled up and away to sit nonchalantly on the Town Hall's decorative split rail fence. The town actually put the fence there to deter winter drivers from crashing into the very old and very mesmerizing maple tree that jutted high from its crabgrass lawn.
Possibility - the sheer idea of the coming adventures - spread a huge and cheeky grin across my face. Had Lindsey turned around I don't know what she would have thought. Who knows what the inmates of passing cars thought. I was much to excited to care. We sloughed through leaf piles, stopped to admire weird red-tipped trees, walked sideways and backwards up the windy pavement to the car.
"Somewhere," I said with agitation. "I have to go somewhere and I just want to walk."
"I need to do something crazy now before grad school takes over my life," Lindsey interjected. She was agitated too. We were like a pair of washing machines, fidgeting our way up the hillside, stopping here and there to look.
I don't know where I'm going next, but I'm ready to go. So much for trying to fool myself with ideas of settling into a job this summer. I'm just going to have to find one that sends me places. *%^& I need a plane ticket!
I'm so ready that perusing plane tickets is my happy hour. When I got frustrated by expense and my duty to school I got a hair cut instead. I called the salon and fifteen minutes later found myself in the shop saying, "Here's my head. Have fun!" The excitement of snazzy hair hasn't worn off, but it cannot mask an even deeper desire to walk the face of the Earth. Wander.
Lindsey and I went out early this Saturday morning. We drove part way to Northampton, then parked and walked the remaining distance to a quiet country cafe at the base of Mount Holyoke. Barstow's serves organic eggs and meats, home baked goods, and twenty-five cent coffee refills. It's where we spent our Mountain Day after summitting at 8:30 in the morning. It's where we spend many of our Saturday mornings too. I like sitting at the "bar," a red counter that runs the length of one wall. Broken up by series of oblong windows, it makes me feel like I'm watching a movie in HD 3-D or observing the world from a fish bowl or airplane. It's my safe observatory.
Nothing feels too hard on mornings like that when you have daylight on your side and hours of possibility. The freshness of late fall air zings your nostrils and your throat at the intake of breath; you know you're alive. We worked, drank pumpkin spice coffee and fogbuster, and worked some more: Lindsey on her grad school apps and me on the emails and papers conspiring to take over my life. Rumors of lunch rumbled in our stomachs at half twelve. By one o'clock we had repacked our computers and notebooks to begin meandering back to the car.
Lindsey's cell phone rang. It was her sister. I walked behind along the mostly quiet highway, sneaking to stand freely in the middle of the road until the next car came. It's one of the adventure games I used to play growing up in nowhere Massachusetts. Hardly any cars ever passed along one of the only two paved roads of my childhood town. Sometimes I walked up my dirt road to stand in the middle of route 57. Arms spread wide, head tilted back, I felt free - a rebel - standing alone in the open space of the "highway." After some years of this, I even started lying down on the yellow stripes just to feel the exhilarating rush of danger. I would stare at the sky - the night sky, the morning sky, the afternoon glow. And when the rumble of an oncoming car vibrated the hot black beneath me, I scrambled up and away to sit nonchalantly on the Town Hall's decorative split rail fence. The town actually put the fence there to deter winter drivers from crashing into the very old and very mesmerizing maple tree that jutted high from its crabgrass lawn.
Possibility - the sheer idea of the coming adventures - spread a huge and cheeky grin across my face. Had Lindsey turned around I don't know what she would have thought. Who knows what the inmates of passing cars thought. I was much to excited to care. We sloughed through leaf piles, stopped to admire weird red-tipped trees, walked sideways and backwards up the windy pavement to the car.
"Somewhere," I said with agitation. "I have to go somewhere and I just want to walk."
"I need to do something crazy now before grad school takes over my life," Lindsey interjected. She was agitated too. We were like a pair of washing machines, fidgeting our way up the hillside, stopping here and there to look.
I don't know where I'm going next, but I'm ready to go. So much for trying to fool myself with ideas of settling into a job this summer. I'm just going to have to find one that sends me places. *%^& I need a plane ticket!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Fire on the Page
Dream new dreams - I'm talking the unhinged kind: money and fears aside. Throw everything out the window for just one hour and uncage your imagination. In another 5 years, what things will you still be wishing for...unless you make a plan now...unless you do something now? An attempt is more success than never trying at all.
Sitting comfortably on my return flight home that first summer in Africa, a very strange thought alighted on my warped and tired brain. It waited quietly for me to notice it, looking into my eyes, watching my pen scribble languidly down my journal page. Fingers tired, I put my pen down and looked up to meet the little eyes of the little thought sitting, awaiting my attention. It smiled. Dream a new dream, it said. A new dream? Head cocked, still holding my gaze, it replied: A new dream. It's time for a new dream. It continued. You have lived this one out. You have worn it and worn it out. You have partaken and eaten it in its fullness. You have spun it and woven it to its end. What is the new dream? The idea that I had actually, finally, lived out my greatest dream to its completion froze me in a long moment of surprise and pondering. I had dreamed it for so very long, ached for it, begged for it, cried about it, worked for it - and now I had lived it. "What next?" seems an obvious question, but it was one I had not expected to ask myself for a long time, if ever. And there I was, 20 years old, holding fragrant ashes of a dream that lived only in my mind since the age of 6. Fourteen years, for a 20 year-old, is most of a lifetime, so to face the question, "what next?" was mere puzzlement.
For those of you who followed my journey back to Ethiopia this summer, you know that indeed, I dreamed a new dream and lived it out too. Of course, that means that once again, I'm facing the same question, what next? This time, however, I face it not with trepidation but with avidity. I'm thirsty from spilling ideas everywhere, hungry with an appetite encouraged by previous adventures. Karen gave a gift that won't ever be matched. Karen few my dreams, gave me the hope to dream, to try, and to know that even if a dream is not fully realized, at very least I tried. If tried and I know and that is what I ask for first.
Sometimes I take an hour on a Friday afternoon, such as today. I sit with my notebook or at a compute with a satisfying keyboard, streaming the thoughts and imaginations of my mind onto the pages. Some of them I'll never chase, but writing them out helps me sort out the ones that are most important. Thoughts and more thoughts shape the dreams, plans evolve, action is inspired. Certain lines, particular words - lingual fire on a the page - attract my attention. I'm already running down another fork in the road to see what will happen if I chase it. It might be a dead end; I may have to turn back. But then it is no longer that road I passed too many times, wondering where it led it.
Sitting comfortably on my return flight home that first summer in Africa, a very strange thought alighted on my warped and tired brain. It waited quietly for me to notice it, looking into my eyes, watching my pen scribble languidly down my journal page. Fingers tired, I put my pen down and looked up to meet the little eyes of the little thought sitting, awaiting my attention. It smiled. Dream a new dream, it said. A new dream? Head cocked, still holding my gaze, it replied: A new dream. It's time for a new dream. It continued. You have lived this one out. You have worn it and worn it out. You have partaken and eaten it in its fullness. You have spun it and woven it to its end. What is the new dream? The idea that I had actually, finally, lived out my greatest dream to its completion froze me in a long moment of surprise and pondering. I had dreamed it for so very long, ached for it, begged for it, cried about it, worked for it - and now I had lived it. "What next?" seems an obvious question, but it was one I had not expected to ask myself for a long time, if ever. And there I was, 20 years old, holding fragrant ashes of a dream that lived only in my mind since the age of 6. Fourteen years, for a 20 year-old, is most of a lifetime, so to face the question, "what next?" was mere puzzlement.
For those of you who followed my journey back to Ethiopia this summer, you know that indeed, I dreamed a new dream and lived it out too. Of course, that means that once again, I'm facing the same question, what next? This time, however, I face it not with trepidation but with avidity. I'm thirsty from spilling ideas everywhere, hungry with an appetite encouraged by previous adventures. Karen gave a gift that won't ever be matched. Karen few my dreams, gave me the hope to dream, to try, and to know that even if a dream is not fully realized, at very least I tried. If tried and I know and that is what I ask for first.
Sometimes I take an hour on a Friday afternoon, such as today. I sit with my notebook or at a compute with a satisfying keyboard, streaming the thoughts and imaginations of my mind onto the pages. Some of them I'll never chase, but writing them out helps me sort out the ones that are most important. Thoughts and more thoughts shape the dreams, plans evolve, action is inspired. Certain lines, particular words - lingual fire on a the page - attract my attention. I'm already running down another fork in the road to see what will happen if I chase it. It might be a dead end; I may have to turn back. But then it is no longer that road I passed too many times, wondering where it led it.
Monday, September 27, 2010
September 27, 2010 - If I Made Tea Boxes and Tea Bags
Stand up, stand out.
Never shut up, shout out!
Live alive, don't apologize.
Give both your hands.
Give all your heart.
...Pick up the pieces
when it all falls apart.
Open wide both your eyes.
In one breath - sorrow and surprise.
-Tears you could cry.
-A smile wider than the sky.
Be alive.
Never shut up, shout out!
Live alive, don't apologize.
Give both your hands.
Give all your heart.
...Pick up the pieces
when it all falls apart.
Open wide both your eyes.
In one breath - sorrow and surprise.
-Tears you could cry.
-A smile wider than the sky.
Be alive.
September 27, 2010 - OVERLOAD: to load to excess; overburden
Firsties, beware. This is a common malady of Mount Holyoke Women. Yes, we are intelligent, creative, uncommon, invested, academic women. We are also driven women. Ripe and healthful from a golden summer, we return to campus spilling-over streams of aspiration that run together in a red and gold and blue and green flood. It sluices down the steps of the amphitheater, agitated by our collective energies: the shouts and rumbling chants. It washes over the stage in vibrant greetings and speeches. It colors the air and fills our ears until the whole of South Hadley – no! – The whole of the world knows that once again, we, the NOW women of Mount Holyoke, have gathered to do something greater for the world at hand.
So we begin our doings: class, fourth hours, sports, theater, ensembles, cultural clubs, political and environmental activism, work, workshops, homework, parties, panels, papers, memorials, hikes, small group discussions, brunch, bus rides to Amherst, weekends in Boston…Am I forgetting anything? Oh yes, sleeping. Some of us enjoy the rare activity of sleeping.
Like an endangered species, sleep is a sickly and spare figure, one that makes itself nigh invisible on our campus. Unfortunately, if you do not find this mythical creature often enough or linger in its presence long enough, you’re likely to become sickly and spare yourself (I’ve heard of rare sightings on the info commons couches as well as in the grass on sunny, lethargically warm weekend afternoons).
Before I know it, that stack of books really is too high, six classes is obscenely too much, working in multiple orgs means serving several offices, ensembles require outside rehearsal practice. Suddenly I wonder where the time went. It’s 10pm and students are just zipping up their book bags to begin the trek to the library. Nothing is as simple as it sounded at the beginning of the term. Where did all the empty blocks in my calendar disappear to? Did the Wilder ghost eat digits off my watch? I’m pretty sure it was only 6:30pm ten minutes ago. The calendar is crunched.
How do I know this? Why write about it? Because I have done this without fail every single one of my semesters so far. I return to school, memories of the hectic semester before waxing vague. But I have both determination to succeed and boundaries to sustain myself! At least that’s what I like to think. So I keep that calendar as blank as I can, promising that this semester will be different. I will not over-commit; I will get enough sleep; I will not go to bed too late; I will come prepared to class every time; I will not procrastinate; I will practice piano. But “all” that blank space misleads me into thinking I have enough spare time to start handing it out like overstocks. It’s as though I’m afraid to sit still, afraid to have a little time, afraid of not being busy, afraid that if I’m not “productive” (or at least making myself believe I’m being productive) then I’m being useless and unworthy of the scholarship that brought me here.
The 31st of August I clumsily missed a few steps while carrying my suitcase down a narrow flight of steps while on my way home from a summer in Ethiopia. Though I only skipped three of the stairs before crashing to the floor, an assessment of the damage included one bruised knee, one cracked step, and a broken toe. The break required that I drop my three dance classes as well as any hope of auditioning for a dance team or returning to sports this semester. It also required that I spend the next few weeks on crutches. As a runner and a dancer, I don’t have patience for painful peculiarities such as broken toes, but shake it as I might, it always sifted out the same: crutches, a boot, and pain killers. I was not going to be dancing. The shift opened up holes in my schedule I’d never seen before and instead of rushing to cram them with activities, I decided to let them be for the time. Crutches are definitely not an efficient of desirable means of transport. Just getting places can be an activity.
Since this forced slow-down, I have been experiencing life in a way I never knew before. I had the time to hear Darlingside in the Great Room the other evening. I can afford to read my astronomy text in depth, do further research, and actually grasp the material. I don’t fear taking the luxury of letting friends interrupt my homework to catch up. It doesn’t feel like a sin to give an hour to my voice and piano practice. For once I’m not breathless with anxiety about getting to the next place for the next fill-in-the-blank.
Though I’m off the crutches now, I’m not in any rush to, well, rush. I’m not making too many promises. I’m holding my boundaries better because I have had enough sleep and enough achievable days to know I like peace far too much to relinquish it to the pressure of a faceless force urging me to do more. I can do more with the less that I’ve committed to right now and that’s fine with me!
How to avoid your own hectic hell without breaking a toe, you ask?
- Start by knowing that everything, and I mean everything, is going to take longer than you expect, whether it’s emails, org meetings, lunch, health center appointments, whatever.
- Considering the above, factor in “margin time,” those extra minutes that allow you to check in with a friend who’s having a bad day, or find another printer because yours isn’t working.
- Start small, go big. Challenge yourself to give a lot in only a few areas and see how you feel as compared to being stretched thin over many areas. Commit to working hard for one org for a semester. See where it takes you. If you feel finished at the end of the semester, then move on.
- Keep a list of classes/activities you would like to be a part of during your time at Mount Holyoke. Instead of stacking them all, trade one for another each semester until you find yourself settled in one.
- Set a timer about an hour before you want to be in bed. It will remind you to start wrapping up. Set another one for half another before sleep as another check that you’re in you’re in your PJs.
- When you are already over-committed, don’t be afraid to step out of something (like that extra org). But do it sooner rather than later! Peple aren’t going to hate your for taking care of yourself, however, they may well be annoyed if you ditch them at the last second.
- Finally, college is not a contest of endurance. You may not get to do everything you wanted to do during your time here, but seriously prioritize, and enjoy those things that you do get to do while you are doing them.
Chill out! And have a breathable semester.
So we begin our doings: class, fourth hours, sports, theater, ensembles, cultural clubs, political and environmental activism, work, workshops, homework, parties, panels, papers, memorials, hikes, small group discussions, brunch, bus rides to Amherst, weekends in Boston…Am I forgetting anything? Oh yes, sleeping. Some of us enjoy the rare activity of sleeping.
Like an endangered species, sleep is a sickly and spare figure, one that makes itself nigh invisible on our campus. Unfortunately, if you do not find this mythical creature often enough or linger in its presence long enough, you’re likely to become sickly and spare yourself (I’ve heard of rare sightings on the info commons couches as well as in the grass on sunny, lethargically warm weekend afternoons).
Before I know it, that stack of books really is too high, six classes is obscenely too much, working in multiple orgs means serving several offices, ensembles require outside rehearsal practice. Suddenly I wonder where the time went. It’s 10pm and students are just zipping up their book bags to begin the trek to the library. Nothing is as simple as it sounded at the beginning of the term. Where did all the empty blocks in my calendar disappear to? Did the Wilder ghost eat digits off my watch? I’m pretty sure it was only 6:30pm ten minutes ago. The calendar is crunched.
How do I know this? Why write about it? Because I have done this without fail every single one of my semesters so far. I return to school, memories of the hectic semester before waxing vague. But I have both determination to succeed and boundaries to sustain myself! At least that’s what I like to think. So I keep that calendar as blank as I can, promising that this semester will be different. I will not over-commit; I will get enough sleep; I will not go to bed too late; I will come prepared to class every time; I will not procrastinate; I will practice piano. But “all” that blank space misleads me into thinking I have enough spare time to start handing it out like overstocks. It’s as though I’m afraid to sit still, afraid to have a little time, afraid of not being busy, afraid that if I’m not “productive” (or at least making myself believe I’m being productive) then I’m being useless and unworthy of the scholarship that brought me here.
The 31st of August I clumsily missed a few steps while carrying my suitcase down a narrow flight of steps while on my way home from a summer in Ethiopia. Though I only skipped three of the stairs before crashing to the floor, an assessment of the damage included one bruised knee, one cracked step, and a broken toe. The break required that I drop my three dance classes as well as any hope of auditioning for a dance team or returning to sports this semester. It also required that I spend the next few weeks on crutches. As a runner and a dancer, I don’t have patience for painful peculiarities such as broken toes, but shake it as I might, it always sifted out the same: crutches, a boot, and pain killers. I was not going to be dancing. The shift opened up holes in my schedule I’d never seen before and instead of rushing to cram them with activities, I decided to let them be for the time. Crutches are definitely not an efficient of desirable means of transport. Just getting places can be an activity.
Since this forced slow-down, I have been experiencing life in a way I never knew before. I had the time to hear Darlingside in the Great Room the other evening. I can afford to read my astronomy text in depth, do further research, and actually grasp the material. I don’t fear taking the luxury of letting friends interrupt my homework to catch up. It doesn’t feel like a sin to give an hour to my voice and piano practice. For once I’m not breathless with anxiety about getting to the next place for the next fill-in-the-blank.
Though I’m off the crutches now, I’m not in any rush to, well, rush. I’m not making too many promises. I’m holding my boundaries better because I have had enough sleep and enough achievable days to know I like peace far too much to relinquish it to the pressure of a faceless force urging me to do more. I can do more with the less that I’ve committed to right now and that’s fine with me!
How to avoid your own hectic hell without breaking a toe, you ask?
- Start by knowing that everything, and I mean everything, is going to take longer than you expect, whether it’s emails, org meetings, lunch, health center appointments, whatever.
- Considering the above, factor in “margin time,” those extra minutes that allow you to check in with a friend who’s having a bad day, or find another printer because yours isn’t working.
- Start small, go big. Challenge yourself to give a lot in only a few areas and see how you feel as compared to being stretched thin over many areas. Commit to working hard for one org for a semester. See where it takes you. If you feel finished at the end of the semester, then move on.
- Keep a list of classes/activities you would like to be a part of during your time at Mount Holyoke. Instead of stacking them all, trade one for another each semester until you find yourself settled in one.
- Set a timer about an hour before you want to be in bed. It will remind you to start wrapping up. Set another one for half another before sleep as another check that you’re in you’re in your PJs.
- When you are already over-committed, don’t be afraid to step out of something (like that extra org). But do it sooner rather than later! Peple aren’t going to hate your for taking care of yourself, however, they may well be annoyed if you ditch them at the last second.
- Finally, college is not a contest of endurance. You may not get to do everything you wanted to do during your time here, but seriously prioritize, and enjoy those things that you do get to do while you are doing them.
Chill out! And have a breathable semester.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
June 7, 2010 - Making Room
It's hitting me more fully now. It's really sinking. It's only 5:15 am and I've come wide awake to the thought of plus three and what that's going to mean. Funny how I wondered awake to the thought of "Where are we going to put them?" I lay in my vastly large and comfortable bed trying to sort this out through the haze of departing sleep. Of course, the days of singe rooms are mostly over. Isn't that part of the bargain? A moment of disappointment swept through as I realized that my days alone in this creamsicle colored room, for better or for worse, are coming to and end. I guess that means I really am growing up. *sigh* The reality that I am about to share my parents even more and so take on more leadership and independence just from the fact that I will be plus three farther from being the youngest and most needful. Independence, isn't that something I've been praying for, seeking out, fighting for?
But wait, I did already think this through - a fact I had forgotten. I thought about it when I walked out of Layla for the last time, when I hugged Masho and Weyessa for the first time, when the possibility of adoption arose again. I have thought this through and I remember coming to the conclusion that it is better for me to have to work a little harder, to struggle a little more - if it gives more children the chance to experience the unsurpassed support and love that I have known. My parents are professionals. I want to recognize them. They may never wear medals of honor or meet the President, but they are heroes. They do not just host foreigners as ambassadors do; they do not just study the "other" as an anthropologist might; they are more than superb hosts; they are more than great explorers who leave the comfort of home for far and unknown reaches. Mom and Dad bring the world into their home and offer its children harbor, permanent and safe. Like a mothering nation to a camp of refugees, they ensure medical care, education, meals...and even more, my parents bathe these children - children they have no biological reason to care for - with love, empathy, strength, encouragement, hope, and healing. If I have to work that much harder, suffer a little, pass up some kinds of comfort if it means a future for these three then so be it. It is not for me to steal their future from my passing desires and foolish fancies. Do you find yourself wishing to be a man or woman of character? You are asking for hard things to come your way, my friend, but not things you will necessarily regret in the end.
Now I understand why, for the last two years I have felt urged to clean the unnecessary from my life. I have pushed boxes and bags of things from years passed, hoping that God was right when He told me that those fragments of history would not help me remember or enjoy my past. "You don't need things to remember. That blanket can tell you no more than a stone saved from a day and a place you no longer recall." God is right. I have my journals to remind me, Him to remind me, and best of all, I have (or will have) eleven other family members to help me recall. I thank Him for loosening my hold on the material these last few years. Otherwise, this experience would not be possible. I am about to make room for another - my sister, best friend, and soon roommate, Sheridan Rose. You know, I think I am ready to do that again. Keeping her in mind as I give this room one final and heroic go-round keeps me centered on the goal and one of my strongest beliefs, a simple but deeply profound idea to me: people are more important than things. Books, hair dryers, clothes, yes and even laptops, can be replaced. The opportunity to save E_____, S_____, and A____ comes once. Should a pile of clutter really stand in the way of that? Should sharing a room stand in the way of that? Should my desires for recognition stand in the way of that? Can you stand in front of a Mac truck of truth and expect to not get run over?
Yes, the reality of my future, of our future - the calling of what it is to be a McAlister in God's kingdom is really settling over me. What an unusual breed. As Christians we are called to do what the world calls "hard things." We call it God's will. "Hard things" are hardest or just hard when we take the worldly stance, but God's mathematical and logical methods are not exactly forces the human mind can comprehend. Since when does 5 + 2 = enough food for thousands and thousands of people with leftovers!!! It's humanly impossible and unthinkable. Since when do people raise thousands of dollars in less than a week for Christ-based cause from people who can't remember the last time they set foot in a church? The weight, the reality of what it means that God can and does supply beyond what we could ever ask, think, or imagine is that we have to give in to His plan. His plans are so much more complete than our own and He always finds a way to work them out, and often times, as I have seen, in surprising and miraculous ways. Often times that miracle is not a material one, but a change in me, an opening up, a willingness, a softened heart. That is more miracle to me than the overwhelming financial generosity I have seen these last few days.
We, as Christians generally and McAlisters specifically, are called to something so much higher and harder. We've been called to an unusual thing. The only prayers I can truly recall from my childhood are these: that God would make me wise like Solomon, that I would live with a faith like George Muller's, and that He would send me to the nations. I am only 21 and already I see this is happening. As a six year old I didn't understand what I was asking for. Thank God! I might have run very hard and very fast the other way. No denying a feel a pang, even now, for the kind of growing up this future requires, but if nothing else I know this much, that God - like my family - will be there with me along the way. We are a family and we are in this together.
But wait, I did already think this through - a fact I had forgotten. I thought about it when I walked out of Layla for the last time, when I hugged Masho and Weyessa for the first time, when the possibility of adoption arose again. I have thought this through and I remember coming to the conclusion that it is better for me to have to work a little harder, to struggle a little more - if it gives more children the chance to experience the unsurpassed support and love that I have known. My parents are professionals. I want to recognize them. They may never wear medals of honor or meet the President, but they are heroes. They do not just host foreigners as ambassadors do; they do not just study the "other" as an anthropologist might; they are more than superb hosts; they are more than great explorers who leave the comfort of home for far and unknown reaches. Mom and Dad bring the world into their home and offer its children harbor, permanent and safe. Like a mothering nation to a camp of refugees, they ensure medical care, education, meals...and even more, my parents bathe these children - children they have no biological reason to care for - with love, empathy, strength, encouragement, hope, and healing. If I have to work that much harder, suffer a little, pass up some kinds of comfort if it means a future for these three then so be it. It is not for me to steal their future from my passing desires and foolish fancies. Do you find yourself wishing to be a man or woman of character? You are asking for hard things to come your way, my friend, but not things you will necessarily regret in the end.
Now I understand why, for the last two years I have felt urged to clean the unnecessary from my life. I have pushed boxes and bags of things from years passed, hoping that God was right when He told me that those fragments of history would not help me remember or enjoy my past. "You don't need things to remember. That blanket can tell you no more than a stone saved from a day and a place you no longer recall." God is right. I have my journals to remind me, Him to remind me, and best of all, I have (or will have) eleven other family members to help me recall. I thank Him for loosening my hold on the material these last few years. Otherwise, this experience would not be possible. I am about to make room for another - my sister, best friend, and soon roommate, Sheridan Rose. You know, I think I am ready to do that again. Keeping her in mind as I give this room one final and heroic go-round keeps me centered on the goal and one of my strongest beliefs, a simple but deeply profound idea to me: people are more important than things. Books, hair dryers, clothes, yes and even laptops, can be replaced. The opportunity to save E_____, S_____, and A____ comes once. Should a pile of clutter really stand in the way of that? Should sharing a room stand in the way of that? Should my desires for recognition stand in the way of that? Can you stand in front of a Mac truck of truth and expect to not get run over?
Yes, the reality of my future, of our future - the calling of what it is to be a McAlister in God's kingdom is really settling over me. What an unusual breed. As Christians we are called to do what the world calls "hard things." We call it God's will. "Hard things" are hardest or just hard when we take the worldly stance, but God's mathematical and logical methods are not exactly forces the human mind can comprehend. Since when does 5 + 2 = enough food for thousands and thousands of people with leftovers!!! It's humanly impossible and unthinkable. Since when do people raise thousands of dollars in less than a week for Christ-based cause from people who can't remember the last time they set foot in a church? The weight, the reality of what it means that God can and does supply beyond what we could ever ask, think, or imagine is that we have to give in to His plan. His plans are so much more complete than our own and He always finds a way to work them out, and often times, as I have seen, in surprising and miraculous ways. Often times that miracle is not a material one, but a change in me, an opening up, a willingness, a softened heart. That is more miracle to me than the overwhelming financial generosity I have seen these last few days.
We, as Christians generally and McAlisters specifically, are called to something so much higher and harder. We've been called to an unusual thing. The only prayers I can truly recall from my childhood are these: that God would make me wise like Solomon, that I would live with a faith like George Muller's, and that He would send me to the nations. I am only 21 and already I see this is happening. As a six year old I didn't understand what I was asking for. Thank God! I might have run very hard and very fast the other way. No denying a feel a pang, even now, for the kind of growing up this future requires, but if nothing else I know this much, that God - like my family - will be there with me along the way. We are a family and we are in this together.
May 9, 2010 - LEADERSHIP ~ The Remix
LEADERSHIP – the Remix
Leadership - prior to college I had a vague notion that it involved titles, power, and charisma. Then I arrived at Mount Holyoke where every first- year had some kind of title, plenty of brainpower, and charisma to spare. We could wear our snazzy shoes and spout about neo- transitionalism; we knew how to take good notes and earn participation points. What we did not see those first days, however, was that here, former titles are lost; style means whatever is on the top of the laundry basket, and mere elegant verbosity is not equivalent to a logical discourse. I had stepped onto a track that was about to reshape me.
They draw you stealthily at first, flinging wide the door of opportunity with hundreds of campus organizations, athletic teams, committees, and initiatives. I joined a sports team my first year, residential life my second, and an a cappella group my third. Consequentially, I made friends. That was when the trouble began - because I had started to care. Suddenly there were first-years looking to me as their mentor, an a cappella group relying on my musical skills to direct their arrangements, and before I knew it, I had been unanimously and involuntarily elected of co-chair the eighteen-members Sacred Symphonies. The pressure of leading was not on my to-do list. But as I said, I had begun to care, a power that carried me a very long way. Making music outweighed my insecurities despite forthcoming complications. Apathy as well as a lack of structure and accountability had made the group weak over the previous term and created internal conflicts. My co-chair and I spent the semester working to clear up disputes, define the mission, and draft a constitution. Once seduced by strength of our friendships there was no turning back - and I didn't wish to. That is the danger in caring: it always leads to something. If you let yourself love people, then *gasp* you might want to help them!
In addition to avoiding authority roles, I also felt an aversion for politics, particularly within the school. That would have made me yet another apathetic undergrad except for Marija. If you have never encountered aggressive proactivity and affectionate gentleness rolled into one then you must meet Maria Tesla, the Serbo-Croatian Eleanor Roosevelt with a Jackie Kennedy flare. Since the days of our work together as RAs, Marija continually astonishes me with her clear-minded and congenial way of getting things done. When she confided her plan to run for student government association (SGA) president, the political activist in me burst out (or was created in that moment - I'm not sure). Less than an hour and one hundred signatures later, I was running Marija's campaign. I believed that she could make a difference and I cared to see her make that difference. As of Tuesday evening, I am proud to announce Marija as SGA president-elect!
What does this mean when the real world happens, when your best professor's contract isn't renewed and you don't like it because, darn-it-all, you care! It means stirring up polite dissent by organizing students in a letter-writing campaign. It means making the change that I wish to see. This year has redefined leadership for me as a state of servanthood, ambassadorship, and humility. Rising from a state of apathy to one of activity, I am transforming in response to the strenuous and disciplined training here at Mount Holyoke. Our education stirs us to work for and care about something greater than Self. Mary Lyon's vision for the college - "Head, heart, and hands" - persists in our curriculum today. There is now nothing more fulfilling than pouring myself out for another, for in so doing I am filled to overflowing. This principle guides me now as I prepare for a life of community-building at home and abroad, and it starts at the personal level. It starts with the lessons I learn here.
Aside:
After running away from the "impracticality" of a music major, I finally gave in to what I love most. My music major combined with an anthropology minor will prepare me for the ethnomusicology graduate degree that I plan to pursue following graduation in December of 2011. This and next summer I hope to travel to Ethiopia where I will do the body of my research for a senior thesis in the anthropology department on the effectiveness of the Ethiopian orphan care system. I have given considerable thought to spending a few years between college and graduate school in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or another similar volunteer program. No matter what I end up doing, you will mostly likely find my in Africa.
After running away from the "impracticality" of a music major, I finally gave in to what I love most. My music major combined with an anthropology minor will prepare me for the ethnomusicology graduate degree that I plan to pursue following graduation in December of 2011. This and next summer I hope to travel to Ethiopia where I will do the body of my research for a senior thesis in the anthropology department on the effectiveness of the Ethiopian orphan care system. I have given considerable thought to spending a few years between college and graduate school in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or another similar volunteer program. No matter what I end up doing, you will mostly likely find my in Africa.
April 29, 2010 - Dear Africa, You are Breaking my Heart
Dear Africa,
Why are you so far away? Why am I so broken for you? Something is bothering me, and it's you. You won't leave me alone. You are in every mirror and every painting, on every face and in every eye. I look up and I see hovering above me like an allusive mist. I look down at my naked toes and am reminded of you. I
Why are you so far away? Why am I so broken for you? Something is bothering me, and it's you. You won't leave me alone. You are in every mirror and every painting, on every face and in every eye. I look up and I see hovering above me like an allusive mist. I look down at my naked toes and am reminded of you. I
March 29, 2010 - Fill in the Hole
Sometimes we stand in awe of other Christians. They have so much faith! we think. Or, look at how strong they are! Or, They are so devoted; why can't I be like that? Don't be fooled. What you see is not what you see. "Growing in Christ" isn't what I thought it would be. The more I walk with him, the more I become utterly dependent upon him and in such a way that those things which used to be by my own strength are no longer within my power. And I'm not talking about marathons; I am talking about my everyday. It is no longer me, but Christ in me, writing my homework (I can't even "just write" a paper like I used to), going to the gym, sitting down to dinner.
The more I know Him, the emptier this world becomes for me. I find it harder and harder to fill that emptiness with things other than Him. Things that used to at least temporarily fill or numb have worn off in effect much like the drugs of a long term addict. When I was little, my escape was my books. I craved them. They took me away for a while at least. Then there were sports. But my love died for that when it too became my god. From sports I turned to food to find meaning, and eventually to the ultra mind-numbing 'activity' of television. Talk about pouring a load of crap into your system.
I always watched passionate people and envied their undying fervor because I couldn't seem to keep the fire under me burning for anything, even things I know God gave to me as talents and gifts. Then I thought back to "Chariots of Fire." If you've seen it you may recall the two main characters, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two world class runners training for the 1942 Paris Olympics. Both gifted athletes, their reasons for running were incredibly different. Abrahams ran with a drivenness admired by the world around him. You could see it in his face whenever he ran; driveness, self-denial, discipline. None of these were necessarily bad things, but you can tell he gained something other than joy and pleasure from the experience. What kept him running? The knowledge that he had the potential to be the world's fastest, best. It was from that hope that he drew his meaning. It was his life to accomplish this; it was his filling for an evident emptiness.
Then there was Eric. Eric struggled with the bipolar pull on his life. His sister thought his running frivolous and wished him to devote himself entirely to the mission where the true work of life was. Yet he knew he had a gift, a God-given gift. When he decided to train for Paris before going to China on missions he told his sister, "But Jenny, God also made me fast and when I run I feel His pleasure." Ahah! That is what makes Eric different. He has true joy from the same activity that drives Abrahams like a horse. Eric knows better than to run away with that gift though. He keeps God first, knowing that He is the only thing that can fill his emptiness, and that it will only be filled permanently in Heaven. He gives his gift back to God and lays his life down and in so doing he lives in true joy.
I doubt that, at that point in his life, Liddell could really have done anything other than what he did when he put God first and did not run on Sunday. He (and I as well) had come to a point where anything that was not Christ was dead, was empty, was pointless, and perhaps even then a bit depressing. Living for God, living in Christ - I have come to the place that even if I wished to turn back I couldn't possibly. As the world shrinks more into death around me, I turn my face to God even more. The more I turn to Him, the more the earth fades away.
Even those things in which God has gifted me I must first give back to Him if they are to be worth anything. Otherwise they add up to nothing and are useless. I cannot touch people with this creativity if it is by my own strength because without the breath of Christ it is DEAD. But IN Christ there is life and more abundant. I'm starting to think that it's the only life, not just more abundant because I'm not finding any lasting life anywhere else. Christ is why I got out of my bed today, why I sat and did my homework last night, why I practice piano, why I sat with a hurting friend. Christ is the only REASON. He causes me to love because he loves me. And you know, that Beatles weren't too far off when they said, "All you Need is Love."
The more I know Him, the emptier this world becomes for me. I find it harder and harder to fill that emptiness with things other than Him. Things that used to at least temporarily fill or numb have worn off in effect much like the drugs of a long term addict. When I was little, my escape was my books. I craved them. They took me away for a while at least. Then there were sports. But my love died for that when it too became my god. From sports I turned to food to find meaning, and eventually to the ultra mind-numbing 'activity' of television. Talk about pouring a load of crap into your system.
I always watched passionate people and envied their undying fervor because I couldn't seem to keep the fire under me burning for anything, even things I know God gave to me as talents and gifts. Then I thought back to "Chariots of Fire." If you've seen it you may recall the two main characters, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two world class runners training for the 1942 Paris Olympics. Both gifted athletes, their reasons for running were incredibly different. Abrahams ran with a drivenness admired by the world around him. You could see it in his face whenever he ran; driveness, self-denial, discipline. None of these were necessarily bad things, but you can tell he gained something other than joy and pleasure from the experience. What kept him running? The knowledge that he had the potential to be the world's fastest, best. It was from that hope that he drew his meaning. It was his life to accomplish this; it was his filling for an evident emptiness.
Then there was Eric. Eric struggled with the bipolar pull on his life. His sister thought his running frivolous and wished him to devote himself entirely to the mission where the true work of life was. Yet he knew he had a gift, a God-given gift. When he decided to train for Paris before going to China on missions he told his sister, "But Jenny, God also made me fast and when I run I feel His pleasure." Ahah! That is what makes Eric different. He has true joy from the same activity that drives Abrahams like a horse. Eric knows better than to run away with that gift though. He keeps God first, knowing that He is the only thing that can fill his emptiness, and that it will only be filled permanently in Heaven. He gives his gift back to God and lays his life down and in so doing he lives in true joy.
I doubt that, at that point in his life, Liddell could really have done anything other than what he did when he put God first and did not run on Sunday. He (and I as well) had come to a point where anything that was not Christ was dead, was empty, was pointless, and perhaps even then a bit depressing. Living for God, living in Christ - I have come to the place that even if I wished to turn back I couldn't possibly. As the world shrinks more into death around me, I turn my face to God even more. The more I turn to Him, the more the earth fades away.
Even those things in which God has gifted me I must first give back to Him if they are to be worth anything. Otherwise they add up to nothing and are useless. I cannot touch people with this creativity if it is by my own strength because without the breath of Christ it is DEAD. But IN Christ there is life and more abundant. I'm starting to think that it's the only life, not just more abundant because I'm not finding any lasting life anywhere else. Christ is why I got out of my bed today, why I sat and did my homework last night, why I practice piano, why I sat with a hurting friend. Christ is the only REASON. He causes me to love because he loves me. And you know, that Beatles weren't too far off when they said, "All you Need is Love."
March 28, 2010 - Why we go to Medical School
I took a break from main service today to play with the in the Sunday school. Miss Cheryl and I and about ten children collected in the middle school gym where we now go to meet for church. Mcaia and Gracie are the only kinderteners so we settled onto the blankets on the floor to color and talk. A few pinked-up Disney Princess pages later, Gracie decided to it was time to play doctor.
"I'm going to be the doctor, Mcaia is the patient, and miss Barbara is the mommy." Mcaia directed me to call the "doctor" and then lay down to groan. When the "doctor" came she asked for symptoms of her "back broken ankle."
"For starters, make sure she has lots of cough medicine, Ibuprofen, Mucinex, and a little Motrin every few hours. Also, let her sleep A LOT and skip school tomorrow. Now mommy, go away while I give her stitches." Stitches!!! Stitches for a back broken ankle and a tummyache. This friends, is where we go to Harvard med school.
"I'm going to be the doctor, Mcaia is the patient, and miss Barbara is the mommy." Mcaia directed me to call the "doctor" and then lay down to groan. When the "doctor" came she asked for symptoms of her "back broken ankle."
"For starters, make sure she has lots of cough medicine, Ibuprofen, Mucinex, and a little Motrin every few hours. Also, let her sleep A LOT and skip school tomorrow. Now mommy, go away while I give her stitches." Stitches!!! Stitches for a back broken ankle and a tummyache. This friends, is where we go to Harvard med school.
Feb 28, 2010 - My Funding Application Essay ~ Cramming my being and my being into 500 words
Tonight, six million small, dark bodies will curl up to sleep without tucking-in rituals, hugs, or kisses[1]. They are Ethiopia’s parentless: survivors of HIV/AIDS-engulfed families, hunger, and poverty. Last summer I spent three weeks in Addis Ababa working among such children. The daily assault of disease, want, and death jolted my indolent brain from passivity into an aggressive pursuit of the fundamental problems causing Ethiopia’s escalating orphan population. Inspired, I have determined to share with my community this pressing reality in the form of a documentary exploring the Ethiopian orphans’ plight and sustainable solution practices.
The UN expects that by 2014 Ethiopia’s present number of HIV/AIDS orphans will have tripled,[2] equaling 2,400,000. This statistic does not account for the inevitable increase of the other 86% of non-HIV/AIDS orphans. Because Ethiopia’s governmental finances cannot sustain the burden, NGOs and religious organizations steadily furnish both monetary and physical aid. Alas, need still surpasses facility.
Aided by demonstrative on-site footage, my documentary will capture typical orphan situations and associated establishments including children’s homes, orphanages, extended family, and the Addis Ababa streets. I plan to film interviews with orphans, caretakers, social workers, adoption agencies, concerned citizens, and Ethiopian government officials (I am in contact with UNICEF’s Ethiopia office to secure these appointments) to gather personal stories, facts, and opinions.
Using the resultant body of information and perspective to establish a framework, I will A) track underlying issues effecting the rapid increase of orphans and B) examine both potential and existing practices designed to equip these children to emerge as part of a sustainable solution. Additionally, I intend to parallel the situations of two contemporaries, my adopted brother Weyessa and his friend Arfasa (still in Ethiopia). Five to seven years hence I will follow up with an inquiry reviewing each boy’s circumstances.
Already familiar with the city’s culture, I feel prepared to undertake the hardship of asking difficult questions, witnessing suffering, and digging for information amidst bureaucracy; it is a part of practicing my Mount Holyoke education. Leaders use their resources and abilities to help others. I am Mount Holyoke; I am a leader. My knowledge and experience now urges me forward to a life of active service. My future does not lie in the United States. MHC has shown me that my community is the world. Working vis-Ã -vis third-world reality is the next step towards my greater goal: to teach self-reliance and responsibility to the women and orphans of Africa by first understanding what is hurting them most. I want to empower them with the knowledge to realize their hopes and choose their paths as much as they are able through sustainable solutions for self-sufficiency.
How many times last summer did I wish to capture a moment and transport it home so that others might experience the same raw refreshment of tearing away from themselves! I have found that pouring myself out brings me more fulfillment than hoarding and withholding ever could. By becoming a sieve I am made full.
Feb 18, 2010 - Assigment: a poem about love, compassion, and child-like curiosity (but not really)
Red bucket.
White Sand.
A clamming trowel lingers, gritty, in my hand.
Knees pressed deep beneath the grade.
I came for clams today.
Wet, wet water.
Cool blue.
Sunburn sitting on my neck and ears.
In morning time I came for clams -
I came to dig the sand.
Naked feet.
Bare hands.
At first light came the clamming winds.
Salt smells hovered in the air.
They called me down from long grass hills
To the bathing basin of earth and man.
Fingers buried.
Toes embedded.
My trowel gouged the damply grade.
But all I found where empty shells,
Shards of pearlescent black
And blue and white and gray.
Gray-and-white-and-blue-and-black;
Black-and-white-and-blue-and-gray.
I found no clams today.
Red horizon.
Swelling night.
Scattered lights of golden sway.
A fan of thready, spreading clouds.
A night - I found no clams today.
White Sand.
A clamming trowel lingers, gritty, in my hand.
Knees pressed deep beneath the grade.
I came for clams today.
Wet, wet water.
Cool blue.
Sunburn sitting on my neck and ears.
In morning time I came for clams -
I came to dig the sand.
Naked feet.
Bare hands.
At first light came the clamming winds.
Salt smells hovered in the air.
They called me down from long grass hills
To the bathing basin of earth and man.
Fingers buried.
Toes embedded.
My trowel gouged the damply grade.
But all I found where empty shells,
Shards of pearlescent black
And blue and white and gray.
Gray-and-white-and-blue-and-black;
Black-and-white-and-blue-and-gray.
I found no clams today.
Red horizon.
Swelling night.
Scattered lights of golden sway.
A fan of thready, spreading clouds.
A night - I found no clams today.
Feb 11, 2009 - A Musical Autobiography
I don’t remember particularly caring about music as a child. My earliest recollections are not of ballet lessons, elementary-school band rehearsals, or karaoke with a pink cassette player. What I do remember are Saturday afternoon chores with dad: untangling bicycles from the garage, painting the shed, sweeping out the week’s sawdust from the basement, stacking and restacking chords of firewood, passing by the hardware store for one more box of nails, and the invariable drive to the transfer station where I helped him sort and unload the trash. Dad always had the radio playing as we drove. Oldies, classic rock, New Orleans jazz, folk, the occasional symphony – he said he could even appreciate the art of rap because, “After all, it’s poetry extempore, something I’m not sure even Emily Dickinson could do.”
Every Christmas Eve my father visits the little music store on Railroad Street behind the Triplex Cinema. Half an hour later he comes out with a little brown bag tucked under one arm. The next morning each of his seven children come pouring down the hallway and into the living room to find a very square package etched in dad’s very square handwriting. One year he gave me Satie Piano Works. Another year is was Ferde Grofé Grand Canyon Suite. When I was thirteen he gave me Andreas Scholl’s Wayfaring Stranger. I thought I had never heard anything more ridiculous in my life: a man singing soprano! It sounded completely immasculine and I loathed it, but I didn’t tell dad, instead, slipping it into the bottom of my stack. A year later, while looking for revenge against my older brother, I pulled the obnoxious album and played it on the loudest volume I dared. Then I played it again. And again. And again. I couldn’t stop playing it. I had fallen in love with the contratenor voice of Andreas Scholl. I still play that cd now on early summer mornings at the pool, watching swimmers glide back and forth.
Today, the most important part of music to me is the rhythm. Is it something that magnetically moves me? Does it overwhelm me, consume me? Do my shoulders begin that sway that I know will soon rock the whole of my body whether I want it to or not? The supreme high a drug addict craves is the same sensation music gushes through me. It’s like new blood in the veins. Not necessarily into heavy base, I still enjoy the sense of reverberation in my chest - the ramped up sound system in the car behind me at a stop light pulses a pavement-quaking beat, the rapid staccato rumble and rush of a train whizzing through the tube shakes the whole world. It's music to me.
In my ipod you will mostly find jazz; classical and contemporary piano; Latin rhythms like samba, salsa, and Argentine tango; a capella; folk (think Eva Cassidy); and African and Arabic pop. At the moment I’m most interested in performing and studying the elements the of a capella. Occasionally I turn on some pop, but most of it bores me too quickly. Do pop artists ever write anything aside from songs of love and depression (usually love-sick induced depression)? I did find Owl City’s recent hit "Fireflies" agreeable, however. It happens to not be about either love or depression but addresses the artist's sense of wonder during another night of insomnia - ten million glowing fireflies bobbing and dancing in the night sky.
Another favorite of mine, “Add to the Beauty,” by Sarah Groves, reflects on the doors of possibility opened by redemption.
Sara’s lyrics are sharp. She addresses issues beyond typical subject matter and her use of slant rhyme challenges my preconceived notion of where the words are about take me. Songs like "I Saw what I Saw," "Painting Pictures of Egypt," and "In the Girl there's a Room" speak to a person's interaction with themselves as well as others on levels besides that of fulfilling the "love leak." Aside from my Sara Grove’s collection, my music doesn’t generally have words, or isn't in English so I can’t understand the message even if I want to. My Album Arabic Groove, for example, beats a movement-inducing pulse, but for all I know the artists are singing about tomatoes and carrots. I honestly never thought to look up the translation, though I don't know that I would want to. It detracts from the mystery. Without a translation, the words become another harmony – another layer - not a separate entity of their own.
Dad and I still listen to the radio when we drive. Today is his birthday and when I go home to see him on Sunday I will be sure to first make a stop at the little music store on Railroad Street behind the Cinema. His gifts (and Andreas’s album) were a lesson to me - almost everything is worth a few listens. If I’m not immediately captivated by its rhythm then at very least I should give it some time before forming an opinion of like or dislike.
Oct 18, 2009 - In October Rain (from McGregor Hall)
Last night I stopped asking God, "what am I going to do with my life?" I have always had, at very least, a growing desire to DO something for people, something other than decaying behind a desk for the purpose of building a comfortable life. I knew I loved academia, but that knowledge was meant to be more than learned and then proven by diplomas. It was meant to be applied practically and purposefully as needed in befitting 'places' and places. One summer in Africa and introductory anthropology course - two and half months later I now recognize that with knowledge comes responsibility. The phrase sounds sadly cliche, butin the depths of linguistics, far below the crust of catch-phrases and buzz words, the truth of it's meaning yet remains and that ancestry keeps it from becoming so. In fact, that statement is the second most powerful statement of my life, second only to the words I strung together asking God to forgive me from my sins and take me as His own.
Sara Groves, a Christian song writer known for her word-stitching creativity, wrote this piece back in 2007. It best speaks what I want to explain to you.
I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it
Something on the road, cut me to the soul
Your pain has changed me
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
(what I am made of)
and what I know of love
we've done what we've done and we can't erase it
we are what we are and it's more than enough
we have what we have but it's no substitution
Something on the road, touched my very soul
I say what I say with no hesitation
I have what I have and I'm giving it up
I do what I do with deep conviction
Something on the road, changed my world
To micro quote, I saw what I saw and I can't go back. Or can I? Anthropology, though I love it, is like opening up a can of worms. It's fascinating, it's puzzling, it's mind-bending, and the further I go the more often I hesitate and ask myself, Do I really want to go there? Digging in means I become responsible for what I learn and it's doubt I will be able to justify continuing on my way as before.
So I find myself standing before a partially open door with a choice to make.
Option 1: close the door and return to what I knew life to be before, forgetting as best I can what God showed me there in the deserts, make a comfortable life, earn a comfortable living, never have to worry beyond paying a mortgage, completing my projects, and getting the kids to soccer practice on time. Comfortable. Stressful? Yes. Rewarding? Sure. Did I do something with my particular talents that God gave to me - me as in Barbara Helene McAlister? TBD.
Option 2: open that door wide and pass through to take up the responsibility that became mine when I opened it in the first place by saying, "Lord, I want what you want." You might think the decision was already made then, but that was only the preliminary step. The desire was still to be tested. When God asked me this September, "Will you commit to me? Do you?" I said, "Yes Lord" It was then that I pulled wide the door which I had cracked open bit by bit over the last 20 years. Then today He extended His hand across the threshold to me and asked, "Will you?" and I reached out my own hand to His and took it. "I do." I cried, "With all my heart." I don't even remember if I bothered to close the door of the room I left behind me.
When God made me He wove me with a vision just for me to dream and do. It is up to me to ask Him to reveal it to me, to inspire me with it. It is up to me to pray for it and prepare for it as one would prepare themselves to be a spouse - to grow in honesty and love, to learn self-control, to be bearer of peace and joy, to listen, to obey, to stand up and speak; all of these things and more as God shows me. In the act of crossing through the door I continued, "Lord, give me the vision. Inspire me with the vision of what it is that you want because I've crossed over now. I do want what you want."
The price of stepping through the door is that I forfeit my rights to decide my own path. But I have realized that I on my own I cannot stand and be counted as righteous, that I cannot have hope or real joy, that I cannot be a change-agent, that I am empty and nothing unless i submit myself to God. And then it is not about me anymore. It is about Him. Life is about Him. All of the human effort in the world is not enough to change it. Change cannot come from us. It must come from God. He must be the reason - and He is - that I get out of bed in the morning, that pursue my studies, that I love others and give to others. I can have no other reason than Christ in me. He is the hope and glory.
This is how I know that I am growing up.
Sara Groves, a Christian song writer known for her word-stitching creativity, wrote this piece back in 2007. It best speaks what I want to explain to you.
I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it
Something on the road, cut me to the soul
Your pain has changed me
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
(what I am made of)
and what I know of love
we've done what we've done and we can't erase it
we are what we are and it's more than enough
we have what we have but it's no substitution
Something on the road, touched my very soul
I say what I say with no hesitation
I have what I have and I'm giving it up
I do what I do with deep conviction
Something on the road, changed my world
To micro quote, I saw what I saw and I can't go back. Or can I? Anthropology, though I love it, is like opening up a can of worms. It's fascinating, it's puzzling, it's mind-bending, and the further I go the more often I hesitate and ask myself, Do I really want to go there? Digging in means I become responsible for what I learn and it's doubt I will be able to justify continuing on my way as before.
So I find myself standing before a partially open door with a choice to make.
Option 1: close the door and return to what I knew life to be before, forgetting as best I can what God showed me there in the deserts, make a comfortable life, earn a comfortable living, never have to worry beyond paying a mortgage, completing my projects, and getting the kids to soccer practice on time. Comfortable. Stressful? Yes. Rewarding? Sure. Did I do something with my particular talents that God gave to me - me as in Barbara Helene McAlister? TBD.
Option 2: open that door wide and pass through to take up the responsibility that became mine when I opened it in the first place by saying, "Lord, I want what you want." You might think the decision was already made then, but that was only the preliminary step. The desire was still to be tested. When God asked me this September, "Will you commit to me? Do you?" I said, "Yes Lord" It was then that I pulled wide the door which I had cracked open bit by bit over the last 20 years. Then today He extended His hand across the threshold to me and asked, "Will you?" and I reached out my own hand to His and took it. "I do." I cried, "With all my heart." I don't even remember if I bothered to close the door of the room I left behind me.
When God made me He wove me with a vision just for me to dream and do. It is up to me to ask Him to reveal it to me, to inspire me with it. It is up to me to pray for it and prepare for it as one would prepare themselves to be a spouse - to grow in honesty and love, to learn self-control, to be bearer of peace and joy, to listen, to obey, to stand up and speak; all of these things and more as God shows me. In the act of crossing through the door I continued, "Lord, give me the vision. Inspire me with the vision of what it is that you want because I've crossed over now. I do want what you want."
The price of stepping through the door is that I forfeit my rights to decide my own path. But I have realized that I on my own I cannot stand and be counted as righteous, that I cannot have hope or real joy, that I cannot be a change-agent, that I am empty and nothing unless i submit myself to God. And then it is not about me anymore. It is about Him. Life is about Him. All of the human effort in the world is not enough to change it. Change cannot come from us. It must come from God. He must be the reason - and He is - that I get out of bed in the morning, that pursue my studies, that I love others and give to others. I can have no other reason than Christ in me. He is the hope and glory.
This is how I know that I am growing up.
June 27, 2009 - Bongo, I have a Feeling we're not in Massachusetts Anymore
Our transatlantic flight was delayed at least an hour, all passengers on board. The hurricane warning kept a queue of 15 or more planes grounded, our being the last. I didn't sleep much as we crossed the ocean, though I did try, but my excitement mingled with over-tiredness shocked my system to a near state of ADD. Thankfully my seatmate liked to talk a lot and so did the steward facing us from our seats in the bulkhead. Robert, Navneet and I talked the night away (classical music, Swedish mattresses, cross-country cycling trips) and then watched Slum Dog Millionaire, a film I've waited a long time to see. It was the perfect opening to a trip in to another world. The preemptive forewarning that later held me together as I witnessed similar circumstances throughout my trip. I could not image what it meant for a child to live in filth in a shanty of cardboard, foraging in the gutter for food, toys, and merchandise to resell.
Finally, finally, we landed in Brussels. I said goodbye to my new friends, and spent the next 20 minutes trying to refrain from dancing down the near kilometer-long hallway to immigration. It was hard. Along the way I stopped at a WC to wash up and take some water. When you see something for the first time, everything in your view is delightful. Well, that included the WC. Yes, I took pictures. The moment i stepped through the door, I burst out laughing for it was so different. They don't have stalls, but tiny, individual toilet rooms with heavy doors. The toilet paper is odd too, though quite sensible. It comes from a dispenser in sheets of two so that you don't accidentally over-draw and waste half a meter of paper. After brushing my teeth (of which I have a video, yes, yes) I moved back out to the hallway where I was soon distracted by a pair of statues looking opposite directions. Of course, I had to stand there and take a million photographs, posing with them.
There is something about those first few steps on foreign turf. You feel electricity shoot through your veins as you say those words: Bongo, I've a feeling we're not in the U.S. anymore. It is a crazy, crazy feeling. Just when you didn't think you could stand any taller, you're suddenly walking on the ceiling, and if the ceiling weren't there, you'd be walking on the clouds.
Finally, finally, we landed in Brussels. I said goodbye to my new friends, and spent the next 20 minutes trying to refrain from dancing down the near kilometer-long hallway to immigration. It was hard. Along the way I stopped at a WC to wash up and take some water. When you see something for the first time, everything in your view is delightful. Well, that included the WC. Yes, I took pictures. The moment i stepped through the door, I burst out laughing for it was so different. They don't have stalls, but tiny, individual toilet rooms with heavy doors. The toilet paper is odd too, though quite sensible. It comes from a dispenser in sheets of two so that you don't accidentally over-draw and waste half a meter of paper. After brushing my teeth (of which I have a video, yes, yes) I moved back out to the hallway where I was soon distracted by a pair of statues looking opposite directions. Of course, I had to stand there and take a million photographs, posing with them.
There is something about those first few steps on foreign turf. You feel electricity shoot through your veins as you say those words: Bongo, I've a feeling we're not in the U.S. anymore. It is a crazy, crazy feeling. Just when you didn't think you could stand any taller, you're suddenly walking on the ceiling, and if the ceiling weren't there, you'd be walking on the clouds.
June 27, 2009 - My Bangs are Ninja
Following a 1am packing spree, 2 hours of sleep, 3 ½ hour drive, and 4 hugs goodbye at security, I am now through the gate. Alone at last. Since Friday morning I've been living for this moment, when I would finally turn the last corner of the blue-carpeted hallway to sit quietly by the terminal windows and watch the planes come and go. It means no cell phone, it means no internet, it means no planning; it means I can do nothing more, and that is the greatest relief. Someone told me that the hardest step is onto the plane because you can't turn around. Mid-flight, the pilot is not going to sympathize with your home-sickness, regrets, or misgivings. “Sure son, we can turn this plane around. You've changed your mind? We'll be home in just a minute.”
I think the hardest moment isn't a moment. It's the press leading up to the moment of relief, when you finally turn that last corner. It's running the last errands, settling final plans, packing and repacking, fixing the things that didn't go right the first time. Once you turn the corner, there is nothing more you can do. Not immediately at least. It's the kindest relief. It's the sweet, cool air stirring past your ear on a hot afternoon when the sun beats so oppressive and heavy you lose your breath. You just let go, sit back, and give in to the ride you have signed yourself away to. I'm relieved, alright?
I hadn't spent five minutes on the Other Side before noticing a stranger in loose-fitted cotton pants and a plaid shirt. His unresolved eyes fixed directly on my tumbled hair. His companion, a similar-looking traveler, seemed to find my Merrell treckers fascinating. He cocked his head to one side and studied them diligently, as if looking for for an answer. And how did I see all these things without staring rudely back? Through my new ninja cut, of course! I haven't had bangs since I was eight-years-old. Yesterday I went to the hair dresser, closed my eyes, and told her to have fun. Five inches and quite a few layers later, my family doesn't recognize me. It's a mildly wild cut with curl and flair. The shaggy bangs constantly fall in my eyes, making intimate conversation difficult, exactly my point. It gives me an air of mystery. And I can see everything through the unruly fringe. But you can't see me! Edgy,l I call it, and comfortably distancing. I think it adds to my battery of ninja powers, along with super clean kitchens, onion washing, an indelible desire to laugh, and dancing to my ipod in the street. In the meantime, we'll just have to wait out this tornado warning.
March 23, 2009 - Preparing for the Unknown (this trip is starting to scare me just a little)
I've had since that slate gray morning in November of ham and cheese omelets with Eleni to prepare for this trip. Slowly and slowly I have gathered information, taken down names, read books, made connections, read more books, talked to travelers. Now I have only two months before I leave (I haven't even purchased the tickets yet, don't tell!) and I'm feeling very anxious about this. Did I do it wrong? Am I doing it wrong now? there isn't one right way to travel I guess, but there sure are a lot of wrong ways. The most important thing for me is to pack light. I do not want to be hauling excessive amounts through either the Mediterranean or Africa. So how many pairs of shoes does that add up to? Should I take hiking boots, should I take flip-flops, do I need tennis shoes, what about a pair of dressy shoes? Do I need a nice outfit just in case? Cannot forget that toothbrush! Every question births a new question, or maybe two. And the scariest part is that I just won't know what I got right and what I got wrong until I'm there. If I can just lay the fear and the feelings of being overwhelmed, I know i can get this figured out.
It makes me shake my head in wonderment when I think about how I begged for this trip because I wanted to expand my world - I wanted a bigger view. I haven't even left the continent yet and I'm already overwhelmed by the enormity of my growing world in these last six months. It's too scary and many times in a day I want to run and hide because it's all too big for me to sort out and control. But look on the bright side, it throws me back into the arms of God - I know this whole long life of mine is a trek I won't be able to walk alone. God is my constant travel companion, he never leaves me, he always knows the way, and he has endless resources and connections. So even if the world is too big for me to handle on my own, I have nothing to fear.
It makes me shake my head in wonderment when I think about how I begged for this trip because I wanted to expand my world - I wanted a bigger view. I haven't even left the continent yet and I'm already overwhelmed by the enormity of my growing world in these last six months. It's too scary and many times in a day I want to run and hide because it's all too big for me to sort out and control. But look on the bright side, it throws me back into the arms of God - I know this whole long life of mine is a trek I won't be able to walk alone. God is my constant travel companion, he never leaves me, he always knows the way, and he has endless resources and connections. So even if the world is too big for me to handle on my own, I have nothing to fear.
Feb 24, 2009 - My Bucket List
This is the beginning of my bucket list, but by no means the end...
Things to do:
Skydiving
write a book of poems
write a children's book
write songs and cut an album
play basketball again
become a certified personal trainer
meet George W. Bush
meet the president
try surfing
publish that book of poems
take a sculpture class
model gowns
correspond with a soldier on active duty
bike cross country, maybe the whole country
reach a height of 6'2"
kiss the most handsome man in the world
fall in love with him, permanently
dress up
teach women in a foreign land
run a half marathon
complete a triathlon
Countries/Continents to see:
India
Italy
Greece
All of Europe
All of Africa
Languages to learn:
Italian
Arabic
Spanish
French
Instruments to learn:
Guitar
Voice
Bass
Cello
Return to ballet, modern, ballroom, tango, tap
Things to do:
Skydiving
write a book of poems
write a children's book
write songs and cut an album
play basketball again
become a certified personal trainer
meet George W. Bush
meet the president
try surfing
publish that book of poems
take a sculpture class
model gowns
correspond with a soldier on active duty
bike cross country, maybe the whole country
reach a height of 6'2"
kiss the most handsome man in the world
fall in love with him, permanently
dress up
teach women in a foreign land
run a half marathon
complete a triathlon
Countries/Continents to see:
India
Italy
Greece
All of Europe
All of Africa
Languages to learn:
Italian
Arabic
Spanish
French
Instruments to learn:
Guitar
Voice
Bass
Cello
Return to ballet, modern, ballroom, tango, tap
Feb 2, 2009 - Will You Stick it Out?
It's the day you say "I do," but do you realize what you are saying? You might be beaming from behind a gossamer veil; or you could be the handsome man with the ring in his pocket and his bride filling his eyes. Whoever you are, you are making the greatest commitment of your life.This promise is one that you are swearing to live by until death. Most people don't realize that anymore. 40-50% of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Oddly divorce rates among conservative Christians if significantly higher than that of other faith groups. Wondering why? It is because those marriages are more impacting on a community when they last. A couple that not only sticks it out, but that has taken seriously that "the two shall become one," and is able to minister as a living example, have the power to influence many, many more husbands and wives to hold fast to their commitment, thus preventing broken homes and broken children that would only go on to repeat the standards of their parents. You have no idea how many struggling couples are watching you now, or how many will watch you over the years. The home is the foundation, the safety, for a child. If they cannot see and feel love, respect, and acceptance demonstrated there, there is no model, no proper faucet for filling the child with these much needed verbs and nouns.
Jan 7, 2009 - A-Saurus
If I had a Mantasaurus I think that I might call him Boris.
Or Loris. Or Horace. Or maybe even James, but definitely not Doris!
I would have him wash my clothes, the pots and pans, and wipe my nose.
He would be just as good as any man, but he’d be a Mantasaurus.
If I had a Wrenchasaurus he would do the plumbing for us.
His name is Gus; he clears the rust into his coffeepot, nonplussed.
He’d twist, and twist, and turn the pipes until the water came out just right.
Except that I’d still have to bathe. Never mind the Wrenchasaurus!
Now a Hydrasaurus! He could take my baths! I’d never see the tub again,
Until perhaps 2010 when I turn five and five, and ten.
And then…my mom will tell me, “Noris! Go take a shower.
You smell so awful, like Maquiladoras” I really want a Hydrasaurus.
How about an Oratorasaurus? The kind you find in Moroccan forests.
I’ve heard they like to sing in chorus,
So it’s best if you find two or three so they can sing in harmony
While singing in their chorus. Now that’d be cool! An, Oratorasaurus.
My mom would like a Tergasaurus, and so would dad I’m sure.
In fact, they said they might send in for one that’s really poor.
“Because,” mom says, “he’d be so grateful. He’d always do his chores,
and eat his limas, for he knows it builds the health of dinosaurs.
“And where’d I sleep? I’d like to know!”
“We’d send you back instead.” My mom is adamant a dinosaur could fit into my bed,
and all because he won’t complain and does his stink’ chores.
Ha! I’d like to see a Tergasaurus try vacuuming the floor!
But more than any other kind -saurus, I’d most prefer my own Thesaurus.
Dad says they’re great for saving time while writing paragraphs or stories.
And even poetry, I’ve heard, would go a whole lot faster
If I had my own Thesaurus to be their wordy master.
Or Loris. Or Horace. Or maybe even James, but definitely not Doris!
I would have him wash my clothes, the pots and pans, and wipe my nose.
He would be just as good as any man, but he’d be a Mantasaurus.
If I had a Wrenchasaurus he would do the plumbing for us.
His name is Gus; he clears the rust into his coffeepot, nonplussed.
He’d twist, and twist, and turn the pipes until the water came out just right.
Except that I’d still have to bathe. Never mind the Wrenchasaurus!
Now a Hydrasaurus! He could take my baths! I’d never see the tub again,
Until perhaps 2010 when I turn five and five, and ten.
And then…my mom will tell me, “Noris! Go take a shower.
You smell so awful, like Maquiladoras” I really want a Hydrasaurus.
How about an Oratorasaurus? The kind you find in Moroccan forests.
I’ve heard they like to sing in chorus,
So it’s best if you find two or three so they can sing in harmony
While singing in their chorus. Now that’d be cool! An, Oratorasaurus.
My mom would like a Tergasaurus, and so would dad I’m sure.
In fact, they said they might send in for one that’s really poor.
“Because,” mom says, “he’d be so grateful. He’d always do his chores,
and eat his limas, for he knows it builds the health of dinosaurs.
“And where’d I sleep? I’d like to know!”
“We’d send you back instead.” My mom is adamant a dinosaur could fit into my bed,
and all because he won’t complain and does his stink’ chores.
Ha! I’d like to see a Tergasaurus try vacuuming the floor!
But more than any other kind -saurus, I’d most prefer my own Thesaurus.
Dad says they’re great for saving time while writing paragraphs or stories.
And even poetry, I’ve heard, would go a whole lot faster
If I had my own Thesaurus to be their wordy master.
Dec 29, 2008 - The Best Surprise of the Season
Italy came to me for Christmas. She walked through the door wearing red cord and a black beret, her face still glowing from the Italian summer sun. I had forgotten what vivacity sails in the door just ahead of her. It filled the room and flooded the floor so that it was almost too slippery to walk on, or perhaps it was my enthusiasm that made it difficult to stand. I flapped to the door to greet her. She was real! She was here! My one and only Laura Marini has come once more to the states. Laughing and shouting between mouthfuls of fruit and waffle, the icy film of winter dissipates and the room begins to glow with light and warmth. Even my fingertips regain their color, tingling at the rush of blood flow.
"What have you been doing, Laura?" Zac bellows above the gleeful tumult. "How, how on earth did you get here?"
"I've been studying physics at ze university," she called back. "I came on ze airplane, through New York. I arrived on ze tventy-third and spent Christmas with the O.K. Langs." Amidst more shouting Laura communicated that she would be staying until the tenth of the new year. Oh the things we will do! I thought.
Already we have dawdled about town as we used but two years ago, though under quite different circumstances. This time Laura and I have no Spanish script to write and film. Sweet relief that is! Now we can trundle around all we like, peer in shop windows, laugh at the tourists, throw slush balls, and go sledding in all the wrong places - only the best that Great Barrington has to offer ;p There is iceskating to come, swimming and the sauna, attempts of true Italian cooking, games of cranium and charades, even tango and salsa parties. We have museums to visit, pictures to take, stories to tell, and many, many incapacitating laughs to enjoy. We have already begun to revive the spring, even in the dead of winter.
"What have you been doing, Laura?" Zac bellows above the gleeful tumult. "How, how on earth did you get here?"
"I've been studying physics at ze university," she called back. "I came on ze airplane, through New York. I arrived on ze tventy-third and spent Christmas with the O.K. Langs." Amidst more shouting Laura communicated that she would be staying until the tenth of the new year. Oh the things we will do! I thought.
Already we have dawdled about town as we used but two years ago, though under quite different circumstances. This time Laura and I have no Spanish script to write and film. Sweet relief that is! Now we can trundle around all we like, peer in shop windows, laugh at the tourists, throw slush balls, and go sledding in all the wrong places - only the best that Great Barrington has to offer ;p There is iceskating to come, swimming and the sauna, attempts of true Italian cooking, games of cranium and charades, even tango and salsa parties. We have museums to visit, pictures to take, stories to tell, and many, many incapacitating laughs to enjoy. We have already begun to revive the spring, even in the dead of winter.
Oct 9, 2008 - Into Africa ~ An Imaginary Walk
What in the world could possibly run through a Massachusetts country girl’s mind that would urge her to throw herself into the heart of the blazing African summer with only a backpack, a camera, and a notebook, where nothing, not even water and air, are anything like home? Everything spoke against it - my safe-seeking heritage, the language barrier, my status as an unaccompanied young female, the extreme foreignness of the several customs and cultures, my parents, everything. And still the hollow call of wild Africa drew me from my native shores. It was the power of curiosity, so irresistible, that drove Pandora to unfasten the forbidden box of unknowns. The gift from her lover Zeus was too tempting to let be. In the same way, the earth lies before me, ominously staked out by politics and war. But it seems a sin to choose ignorance and hide in the comfort of my small New England existence, never to know what it is to be 4 in Namibia, 40 in Chad, rich in Ethiopia, poor in Ghana, educated in Egypt, illiterate in Burkina Faso – to be in someone else’s shoes, or sandals, or bare feet, or what have you. The true and selfish reason that I answered that call was because I wanted to know; I wanted to know what it was like to walk at least a mile in someone else’s shoes. To never advance beyond one’s region or country is to hear only half the story. It is equal to reading one chapter of a book somewhere in the middle with no concept of what came before or what follows after. It is only part of the song, a few frames from a film, a picture torn in two. Left incomplete nothing makes sense; the image is fuzzy, the melody, the poem, the plot all lack completion.
I like to say I am all about the experience. I do not want to carry much baggage; I refuse to carry a cavernous purse; I thwart the desire to own every material thing I think I want in life, because what I truly want are experiences, more than clothes, more than shoes, more than money or multitudes of books even. I want the only thing I can wrap up tight and slip into my pocket, the only thing that counts in the span of a lifetime, that which will not evaporate as other things do. Experience internalizes everything you may have heard about a place, a situation, or a concept. Think of reading about racism versus experiencing first hand what it is to be rejected for who you are; imagine climbing the fierce peak of Everest instead of watching the documentary from a comfortable fireside chair; picture what it is to be welcomed, though a stranger, into the heart of the village as I was. Life is about experience!
Before embarking on this journey my French consisted of two phrases learned from our social worker upon the occasion of my youngest brother’s adoption from Burkina Faso six years ago: “C’est le temps pour dormir” and C’est le temps pour manger” which translate as “it is time to sleep” and “it is time to eat.” It is enough to get around a city I suppose, the countryside, however, is a whole other potbrood (South African pot bread). Armed with these phrases, an English-French dictionary, some knowledge of romantic language grammar, and much determination, I acquired enough vocabulary that summer to keep up with the conversations around me and even developed a decent accent to boot. I traveled from village to village, city to city, and even from country to country, taking in what it means to be a part of this arid continent. Every week was spent in a new location, staying with a family, working alongside them, documenting each step of the way how they carry out an ordinary life.
I worked fields, ground grain, learned to bake bread, herded cattle, cleaned up trash from city gutters, hawked fruit in open-air markets, accompanied statesmen on business, dug wells, dug graves, built homes, and sang and pounded in the occasional drumming circles. But the most universal of these acts through out all the countries I walked through was the dance. Not every region of any culture shares the same dances, but the style of their continent is undeniably recognizable from a thousand kilometers away. No civilized westerner in his right mind ever dances like that. He would be laughed out of New York and all the way to Idaho with no afterthought as to how a human being could possibly perform such impossible feats of endurance and elasticity. The semester of West African dance that I had taken my first year at Mount Holyoke is what brought me initial acceptance in almost every village I went. Not that I was incredibly good at it mind you, but I did dance with heart, losing myself in the music, flailing just as vigorously as the rest of them.
The dance provided a means of communication that compensated for my initial lack of French. A language barrier is an isolating handicap; it prevents the outsider from feeling completely welcomed in to a new environment no matter how hospitable the host may be purely by the fact that one cannot easily communicate even so much as a simply thought. When we danced, however, it did not matter that I was a little WASPY girl from blue Massachusetts who sounded like a speech-impaired frog attempting to croak out discombobulated French. What mattered was that dance was a language we shared in common and could throw ourselves into together, understanding fully and completely what emotion each movements came from. That was how close I came to touching the heart of Africa.
I know it seems I speak of Africa as casually as though she is one larger country, but from her northernmost tip unto her far south tail, no one village is the same. I walked across Africa because it is nothing like what I know. It was like living in another dimension: no ipod, no laptop, no cell phone, no billboards screaming hideous ads - just miles of desert, mountains, crushing poverty, shameless wealth. Continued tensions between many tribes, as well as the remnants of genocide in countries like Darfur and Rwanda haunt abandoned villages and thicken the air. It is not exactly the kind of place nice New Jersey families go to on holiday.
I will always retain a lasting impression, several lasting impressions in fact, of moments I spent with my hands in the bread dough along side them, the peoples of the nations, kneading out the problems of that less comfortable life one vigorous thump at a time. I went desiring to know how other people lived in the everyday, hoping that I could better understand them and maybe even better understand myself; and, perhaps use that knowledge to relate to all people that I encounter, to let them know they are understood. Opening my Pandora’s box may mean finding some, if not much, pain and suffering as is to be expected of reality. But I also hope to find other more hopeful things as well to nurture the ties, not so much between nations, but between people. Because of this desire, I cannot leave it all to someone else - a newspaper, a reporter - to tell me what in the world is going on. I want to go and see for myself: experience it, live it, not just hear about it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this experience is worth at least a hundred thousand.Though the above events have not actually taken place (since I have never been outside the continental United States), they are a representation, a glimpse, of what I hope to experience.
I like to say I am all about the experience. I do not want to carry much baggage; I refuse to carry a cavernous purse; I thwart the desire to own every material thing I think I want in life, because what I truly want are experiences, more than clothes, more than shoes, more than money or multitudes of books even. I want the only thing I can wrap up tight and slip into my pocket, the only thing that counts in the span of a lifetime, that which will not evaporate as other things do. Experience internalizes everything you may have heard about a place, a situation, or a concept. Think of reading about racism versus experiencing first hand what it is to be rejected for who you are; imagine climbing the fierce peak of Everest instead of watching the documentary from a comfortable fireside chair; picture what it is to be welcomed, though a stranger, into the heart of the village as I was. Life is about experience!
Before embarking on this journey my French consisted of two phrases learned from our social worker upon the occasion of my youngest brother’s adoption from Burkina Faso six years ago: “C’est le temps pour dormir” and C’est le temps pour manger” which translate as “it is time to sleep” and “it is time to eat.” It is enough to get around a city I suppose, the countryside, however, is a whole other potbrood (South African pot bread). Armed with these phrases, an English-French dictionary, some knowledge of romantic language grammar, and much determination, I acquired enough vocabulary that summer to keep up with the conversations around me and even developed a decent accent to boot. I traveled from village to village, city to city, and even from country to country, taking in what it means to be a part of this arid continent. Every week was spent in a new location, staying with a family, working alongside them, documenting each step of the way how they carry out an ordinary life.
I worked fields, ground grain, learned to bake bread, herded cattle, cleaned up trash from city gutters, hawked fruit in open-air markets, accompanied statesmen on business, dug wells, dug graves, built homes, and sang and pounded in the occasional drumming circles. But the most universal of these acts through out all the countries I walked through was the dance. Not every region of any culture shares the same dances, but the style of their continent is undeniably recognizable from a thousand kilometers away. No civilized westerner in his right mind ever dances like that. He would be laughed out of New York and all the way to Idaho with no afterthought as to how a human being could possibly perform such impossible feats of endurance and elasticity. The semester of West African dance that I had taken my first year at Mount Holyoke is what brought me initial acceptance in almost every village I went. Not that I was incredibly good at it mind you, but I did dance with heart, losing myself in the music, flailing just as vigorously as the rest of them.
The dance provided a means of communication that compensated for my initial lack of French. A language barrier is an isolating handicap; it prevents the outsider from feeling completely welcomed in to a new environment no matter how hospitable the host may be purely by the fact that one cannot easily communicate even so much as a simply thought. When we danced, however, it did not matter that I was a little WASPY girl from blue Massachusetts who sounded like a speech-impaired frog attempting to croak out discombobulated French. What mattered was that dance was a language we shared in common and could throw ourselves into together, understanding fully and completely what emotion each movements came from. That was how close I came to touching the heart of Africa.
I know it seems I speak of Africa as casually as though she is one larger country, but from her northernmost tip unto her far south tail, no one village is the same. I walked across Africa because it is nothing like what I know. It was like living in another dimension: no ipod, no laptop, no cell phone, no billboards screaming hideous ads - just miles of desert, mountains, crushing poverty, shameless wealth. Continued tensions between many tribes, as well as the remnants of genocide in countries like Darfur and Rwanda haunt abandoned villages and thicken the air. It is not exactly the kind of place nice New Jersey families go to on holiday.
I will always retain a lasting impression, several lasting impressions in fact, of moments I spent with my hands in the bread dough along side them, the peoples of the nations, kneading out the problems of that less comfortable life one vigorous thump at a time. I went desiring to know how other people lived in the everyday, hoping that I could better understand them and maybe even better understand myself; and, perhaps use that knowledge to relate to all people that I encounter, to let them know they are understood. Opening my Pandora’s box may mean finding some, if not much, pain and suffering as is to be expected of reality. But I also hope to find other more hopeful things as well to nurture the ties, not so much between nations, but between people. Because of this desire, I cannot leave it all to someone else - a newspaper, a reporter - to tell me what in the world is going on. I want to go and see for myself: experience it, live it, not just hear about it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this experience is worth at least a hundred thousand.Though the above events have not actually taken place (since I have never been outside the continental United States), they are a representation, a glimpse, of what I hope to experience.
Sept 18, 2008 - The New Doctor
Well, I'm back. Not in full force, not quite yet. I'm still getting classes, work, sports, and other commitments figured out in such a way that I can settle into the elements of a day. Watch, I'll just be getting the hang of things and then the semester will end and then they'll go and change things on me again! But that is because college isn't strictly about book learnin' any more. If that is what you think it is then enroll in an online institution and go live in a library carrel in the back stacks somewhere. You'll make lots of old, dead friends that way, but that won't help you relate very much to the living. Of course, if you're a lab-e then you might find yourself feeling pretty smug about now with that "hands-on" approach best known as straining-one's-eyes-under-a-microscope-to-look-at-cells-preserved-in-formaldehyde. That won't make you too many friends either. Not the real live kind.
More and more I care about people, and less and less about theories that don't work, or even one's that work but don't take the whole person into account. If I were on the pre-med track, you would not catch me - not in a thousand-million years, not if you paid me a thousand-million dollars - running the losing race of the bio/biochem major. It just wouldn't happen. The plan to study lots of tiny cells in a lab so that I can study lots more tiny cells in the bigger and better labs of med school, so that one day I receive a stamped piece of paper that brings ill and broken people to my office day after day...whoa! who said anything about people here?! I thought I was dealing with capped scenarios and testtube experiments, problems that had answers, not emotions.
But that is not the kind of doctor I would want to be.
Sadly today, most angsty pre-med students I've experienced have become or are becoming that doctor. They get all their A's in school, but can't handle it when a real person walks in the door with perhaps multiple issues, all in need of address, including support from other human beings. They can't face another person's crisis with understanding compassion, only with astere lab data because that is what they know - the science, the cognitive, the reasonable, the rational, the tidy little bundle of facts that leads to a conclusions. They have not got the background to help the whole person, which is what really needs help, not just fragments, the whole person.
Since when has medicine involved looking out for the patience whole well-being? Since someone got smart and realized you can't cut off a limb and treat it. Every part is linked to another part which is linked to another part which in turn touches the source. People are not robots. They are not segmented creatures capable of compartmentalizing themelves completely. They need a new kind of doctor, one who looks at the being as a whole unit and takes every aspect into consideration; one who understands the link between body, soul, and spirit. The new doctor needs a broader education. More than a link to people, he needs an avenue, a bridge the size of the Golden Gate, to allow him to connect his medicine to the outside world in a way that will truly be effective. He needs to understand other cultures, know history and economics, develop a critical eye as well as mind, participate in a team experience, know good writing, produce good writing, attempt to understand the creative arts. He needs to dive in and take a swim in something other than formaldehyde if he wishes to be trully effective in his practice. He needs to see where someone else is coming from and he needs to know how to cross discipline bounds and find where they interweave, because they do. No discipline stands alone.
A person who can disperse the idea of these imaginary barriers and find a way to understand the world (their patient) as a big picture made up of lots of small puzzle pieces, will be the new doctor. The person who lives beyond the realm of Latin terms and ideal test tube scenarios can be that doctor. The person who is focused on the patient rather than on lab procedures is that doctor. They can mend body, soul, and spirit.
More and more I care about people, and less and less about theories that don't work, or even one's that work but don't take the whole person into account. If I were on the pre-med track, you would not catch me - not in a thousand-million years, not if you paid me a thousand-million dollars - running the losing race of the bio/biochem major. It just wouldn't happen. The plan to study lots of tiny cells in a lab so that I can study lots more tiny cells in the bigger and better labs of med school, so that one day I receive a stamped piece of paper that brings ill and broken people to my office day after day...whoa! who said anything about people here?! I thought I was dealing with capped scenarios and testtube experiments, problems that had answers, not emotions.
But that is not the kind of doctor I would want to be.
Sadly today, most angsty pre-med students I've experienced have become or are becoming that doctor. They get all their A's in school, but can't handle it when a real person walks in the door with perhaps multiple issues, all in need of address, including support from other human beings. They can't face another person's crisis with understanding compassion, only with astere lab data because that is what they know - the science, the cognitive, the reasonable, the rational, the tidy little bundle of facts that leads to a conclusions. They have not got the background to help the whole person, which is what really needs help, not just fragments, the whole person.
Since when has medicine involved looking out for the patience whole well-being? Since someone got smart and realized you can't cut off a limb and treat it. Every part is linked to another part which is linked to another part which in turn touches the source. People are not robots. They are not segmented creatures capable of compartmentalizing themelves completely. They need a new kind of doctor, one who looks at the being as a whole unit and takes every aspect into consideration; one who understands the link between body, soul, and spirit. The new doctor needs a broader education. More than a link to people, he needs an avenue, a bridge the size of the Golden Gate, to allow him to connect his medicine to the outside world in a way that will truly be effective. He needs to understand other cultures, know history and economics, develop a critical eye as well as mind, participate in a team experience, know good writing, produce good writing, attempt to understand the creative arts. He needs to dive in and take a swim in something other than formaldehyde if he wishes to be trully effective in his practice. He needs to see where someone else is coming from and he needs to know how to cross discipline bounds and find where they interweave, because they do. No discipline stands alone.
A person who can disperse the idea of these imaginary barriers and find a way to understand the world (their patient) as a big picture made up of lots of small puzzle pieces, will be the new doctor. The person who lives beyond the realm of Latin terms and ideal test tube scenarios can be that doctor. The person who is focused on the patient rather than on lab procedures is that doctor. They can mend body, soul, and spirit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)