Finding Oneself Through Service

As my newsfeed on FB begins to fill with my friends beginning their long trek across the US from their homes to Black Rock City, I'm reminded of a major life event I haven't undertaken: Burning Man. I've been to regional events and parties. I've volunteered and done ranging shifts. I've found some of my closest friends, yet I've never taken that step. I've never gone to the desert this last week in August to dance, experience art, and just find myself lost in the experience of BM.

Two years ago this week, I went to Utah the week before BM started. I got on a plane with hopes of counseling young minds in the Utah desert at a survival camp for at-risk youth. That dream didn't quite work out for me, but it lead me back home and back to my family and friends. Of course, a year later I applied to the Peace Corps, and now, here I am...in China. My group of trainees swear in today. We commit the next two years of our lives to service to our country and volunteering in our individually placed communities. I look back on the last few years and I am reminded that there are any number of ways to find oneself, to challenge oneself, and to commit oneself to the service of others.

I began my journey attempting to find a place I fit in this world at birth. I've never felt a sense of normalcy or "humanness," in my life. I've always felt like there was a chip missing or that I was somehow different from others. I've felt compelled to go just a little bit further and just a little bit farther. I love adrenaline and extreme sports, and I seek out-of-the-ordinary experiences to fill my life. When I was very little, I tried to fit in, to find that chip that so many other people have, and to find my "place," among the popular girls and the people wanting to get married or settle down. Five years ago, when I first went back to school, I was with a wonderful man who ended up leaving me, accusing me of needing "a big life," by this time, though, I knew something implicitly, "yeah, well, I only get one! I better make it count!" 

So here I am, five years later, no longer stumbling around looking for my place. I'm making it. I'm creating my own future. It doesn't look exactly like what I thought it would and it definitely doesn't look like most everyone else's. I made a different life for myself. I forged a different path. I am dedicating the next two years of my life to serving my country, the country I find myself in, and my students. I joined the Peace Corps because I wanted to give of myself. I wanted to experience a life that was dedicated to being a better person and never giving up on that dream. I made it happen. That's why I have so little sympathy for those who complain about their situations. Do something about it. This world is big and experiences are unlimited. The only limits you truly have are the ones you place on yourself.

I've found my place through service. What will you find when you stop making excuses?

Fulfilling a Dream

Doris loved teaching. That's why she got her PhD in teaching from Fordham. She worked hard for all her degrees and she didn't stop until she had that super coveted PhD. She dreamt of teaching teachers. She wanted to make a difference in the realm of education. She even wrote a textbook to help teachers teach English to non-native speakers.

As Doris's granddaughter, I remember what it was like to be taught how to read by that smiling and patient woman. It took two or three days of frustration on my part, but she always knew I could do it, and I never stopped reading once I learned. In fact, I loved it so much I ended up a writer so that I could contribute more into that realm of knowledge and books.

My grandmother (Nana to my brother and me and Grandma Doris to our cousins) never did teach teachers. She retired from Stamford Public Schools and moved south to Florida with my grandfather before later succumbing to dementia. Watching that once vibrant woman descend into the depths of forgetting herself and those she loved was absolute torture for my mother and the rest of our family. Even the knowledge of her own accomplishments disappeared. 

The other day, my mother and I were talking. My grandmother passed away before I graduated from college and well before I joined the Peace Corps, but I think she would be proud of me. And as I get ready for the start of my semester at this wonderful teacher's college, my mom reminded me quietly, "that was Nana's dream...to teach teachers." 

So this trip to China, this wonderfully challenging and sometimes frustrating endeavor that I decided to undertake at 33-years-old, I dedicate to her, my grandmother, who taught me how to read. I'm fulfilling this dream for both of us.

China

A few days ago I was sitting at work when my cell phone rang. It was the Peace Corps. I immediately got nervous. My volunteer passport application had been sent the week before and I saw that it had been received according to the tracking. I was nervous that something had happened to it. The man introduced himself as Russ and said, "some additional visas have opened up for China. We want to extend an invitation to you to switch assignments and go to China June 17." He offered to send me the paperwork and answer any questions I may have. He then said, "I need to know by tomorrow at 4pm." I called him three hours later and confirmed my wish to switch.

China. A land where over 20% of the world's population resides. A land where cities give way to farmland with no suburban transition and rice is the main staple in everyone's diet. A land where at 5'9" and a size 10.5 shoe, I will most likely be unable to find clothing that will fit me, so it's important that I pack well.

When I was about ten or so, I was sick with the flu and my mom gave me The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and eventually lead to her being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read it, poring through the pages and imagining such a different life and landscape from my own. Now, 23 years later, I am going to be living in an area that could probably be compared to that landscape, and where life has changed since pre-WWI China, many things have stayed the same. I took the assignment change for many reasons. One being that I really want to experience a completely different culture from my own. I don't want to just see poverty, which is guaranteed no matter where the Peace Corps sends you. I wanted to see staggeringly different life and experience it through the eyes of an anthropologist. As an anthropologist, my job is not to change a culture, but to observe it. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, my job is to foster positive relations and provide tools for greater community, economic, and educational development. I will be teaching college-age students English as a second language in China. My job in Moldova was to be a Business Adviser, which is very closely tied to my pre-alumnus life when I was an International Insurance Broker and a Marketing Manager. The difference in the old assignment and the new is obvious.

Many people don't know my goals when I return home, but one is to receive higher education and possibly become a college professor. I am very fond of saying that I want to go to school for the rest of my life. This job will enable me to get onto a track of educating myself and others. It will enable me to gain experience that will be absolutely paramount in my next steps as an adult human. Whether I study Anthropology, Public Health, or Law, the experience of teaching in China will give me incredible experience that I will carry with me in the next stages. In addition, I will be able to actually gauge the progress of these students and change their lives as well.  It reminds me of Taylor Mali's What Teachers Make Poetry Slam performance. I get to make a god damn difference!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU

I'm not saying that going to Moldova wouldn't have been worthwhile and life changing, but it felt like following a path I already stepped off of. It felt like I was living someone else's life. I applied to the Peace Corps to change my life and a little piece of the world, and I wanted it to be on this new, less traveled path. I'm done with business and business development and making money and profit with no substance. It felt dirty...like I was still a registered Republican (yes, I believe in small government and state's rights, and yes, I also know that the party has been high jacked by evangelicals and the greedy, and with the cost of globalization making small government nearly impossible in this society, I am now a registered Democrat, because that's what happens when you become educated...you see the flaws in the system and want to make them better. You don't want to go back in time to a racist, bigoted, morally bankrupt time when things were "great," only if you were a middle aged straight married employed white man.) But I digress...I want to create a life that fits me, and China just feels right. It feels like the right wedding dress, my favorite champagne, and a bite of watermelon that is crisp, juicy, with no seeds. It feels right. So I'm going to China. The doctor who filled out my paperwork was so sweet. He talked to me for two hours about travel and how much he admired me for my service. This is a man who takes mission trips and does Doctors Without Borders multiple times a year, and he admires ME? Wow. I let that sink in and I found a place within me that felt whole and complete. I now feel full of joy and I feel blessed that in this life, I've already lived such an incredible one and that I have the opportunity to change, grow, and do something truly extraordinary.