Ismael

From my travel journal in Amman, Jordan, April 4th... 

It’s going to be difficult for me to describe just how dynamic the experience of listening to Ismael Siyan, a Palestinian refugee in Jordan, really was. He was only a few years older than us, but he exuded a kind of passion for life and determination to radiate hope and achieve success that was very evident as he talked to us. Ismael lives in Gaza Refugee Camp in Jordan with his family, who has migrated twice: first in 1948 from Palestine to Gaza, and then again in 1967 from Gaza to Jordan. “The right to return moves from generation to generation,” he said. “My father still has the keys and deed to our property in Palestine.” That said, many of the refugees feel that they are part of Jordan now, but face daunting obstacles here as well, making me realize that often times gaining the right to stay can be just as vital as gaining the right to return. 

Ismael told us how refugees are not given same citizenship rights as other Jordanians even if they have lived here for generations -- for example, he has no “national number” (a kind of social security number). He explained to us how, because his family does not live within the legal geographical boundaries of the Gaza Camp (which have been easily outgrown by the integrated, increasing refugee population), he was not able to apply for certain scholarships and programs that would enable him to finish the education that he wanted. He told us of his deep frustration when he had gotten some of the highest marks possible in school that should have allowed him to become an engineer -- but his family could not afford the high costs without any aid. An even further point of discouragement for refugees here, Ismael explained, was that even if you did succeed in finishing a higher education, it would be next to impossible to get employed and make a living -- not matter how bright you proved yourself to be. This has resulted in widespread apathy, disheartenment, and hopelessness among the refugees who perceive that they are caught in a vicious cycle of oppression. In Ismael’s story, however, he was eventually able to find a school where he could study education and psychology (“I’m a very ambitious person,” he grinned. “I wasn’t going to give up, even though I felt depressed by everything”). He realized that he could no longer blame his family for his aggravating situation, and ended up deciding that he wanted to help the camp that he had once so detested. “Everyone can complain, but hardly anyone wants to do anything about it."

In an abandoned building within the camp, Ismael and a few friends began a fitness center to teach their fellow refugees about nutrition and exercise and health awareness, help them work out, and give them something to do. This was revolutionary for his camp. Women, too, were welcome in the new gym, where they were also taught classes that equipped them with skills to make and sell products. Ismael emphasized to us that even if it seems you are trapped in bad circumstances, there is always something that you can do to improve the situation. His commitment to creating and bearing hope for his fellow refugees was truly inspiring -- and beyond that, Ismael exuded an indefatigableness that was riveting and made you think that he would continue to do amazing things with his life as long as his vision and hard work continued. 

Identity

Some travel journal musings from March 1st, in Istanbul...

It was just last semester when one of my history professors asked us to write essays on personal identity. Somehow it was easy to write the essay, easy to spew information about the activities and relationships that in many ways define me and have definitely shaped me, fairly simple to compose something that was close to what the professor was looking for -- and yet I left the task deeply unsatisfied. Was that genuine? I asked myself. Is that really who you are, right now? Beneath the surface of trying to keep everything together day to day, there was a part of me that knew the answers were no. I couldn’t really pin down what defined me anymore, though I knew what my cookie-cutter replies should be. It was one of those moments where, if I’d been at home, I would have pulled a dusty shoebox of baby photographs off a shelf in the basement, carried it to my room, sat in patch of sunlight, and looked through images of smiling parents and baby-dimpled Emilie Anne, deeply loved and innocent, her life full and rich ahead of her. But I couldn’t do that...I was miles away from home, swamped by assignments and a cramped schedule and relationships in which I felt inadequate. And so I pushed all those thoughts and uncertainties deeper down inside where maybe they wouldn’t well up to be dealt with. Most of us know that this doesn’t work for very long. I think part of me was also waiting desperately to just get away from Westmont and leave some of these questions behind in the excitement and new formations of time abroad. But -- lo and behold -- it was still the same Emilie that found herself in Turkey, still the same Emilie that didn’t want to wade through murky thoughts for fear of getting stuck in the mud and watching, as if in a bad dream, the rest of the world pass by unhindered. 

It shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise to me that it is here in Turkey that I’ve really started to evaluate my identity, a still somewhat vague idea of self worth and purpose and motivation all meshed together with an intertwining of the past, the present, and the future. One would think that being abroad in an unfamiliar country, surrounded by strangers speaking in a language we can’t usually understand, would not be much of a confidence booster in the way of solidifying one’s selfhood. I said something to this effect to Lauren (in a conversation we were having over domates çorba), to which she replied that maybe it is during these times that we most discover who we are, because we have nothing else to rely on. We are surrounded, even invaded, by the unfamiliar and by otherness. As long as we do not put up walls that keep everything out altogether, the challenges we face in confronting this newness compel us to fortify ourselves in formerly underdeveloped ways. Not to say that “the Other” should be thought of as a foe; on the contrary, I think that a profound enriching of our lives can occur when we wisely but wholeheartedly surrender the blockades that keep us from interacting with this new invading force that has the power to instill so much exciting change and future openness in our hearts. 

All this to say that when I have very little of my usual lifestyle and comforts (be they relationships, places, activities, etc.) to fall back upon in defining myself, I am forced to turn both inward and outward -- in a manifestation of my personality, sense of identity, actions, and behaviors -- in such a way that would never have been possible were I at Westmont or back in Washington right now. Jim had once told us how he came to the realization that “you are a human being, not a human doing.” If nothing else, this is something I realize I really want to carry home with me at the end of this time abroad: a sense that my identity comes not as much from what I decide to fill up my time with on a daily basis as much as from a deeper understanding of who I am no matter what I’m doing or where I’m living or with whom I’m interacting. With my interactions with Turks here, it’s somehow clearer to me how I am perceived as an individual, i.e. what aspects of my personality people are drawn to and what sides of myself could be eradicated to make me more whole and healthy, both internally and in communicating and connecting with people. Living abroad is kind of like visiting a hamam for the first time: you’re apprehensive, maybe even insecure, about the thought of being naked in front of so many strangers as well as your friends...as you first enter the hamam you clutch your towel tightly around your body...then someone wrenches it deftly away from you, and you are exposed. You can have one of two reactions, or maybe a mingling of the two: a moment of sheer terror when you confront the fact that you are fully uncovered and vulnerable...or a time of enjoyment in the liberating realization that everybody has bodies, everyone is on equal footing, and that overall the hamam experience is quite invigorating, relaxing, and candid. Maybe it is good to have a sense of both, to overcome the former with the latter. Life abroad is like this: it can be a shock when the towel of your old assumptions about yourself (or the circumstances under which you function well) is simply whisked away from you, and you’re left wandering around vulnerably like Adam and Eve in the Garden after the Fall wanting desperately to cover yourself. Yet when you realize that you can no longer live by guise or disguise, you are able to bask in the experience for exactly what it is. It’s just you, plain and simple...and those who surround you, whether as friends or as strangers. 

Yıldız

Below are three segments of journal entries that I wrote about our experiences volunteering every week at an Armenian Girls' Home in Istanbul. We always cherished those days with them...

February 10th

We were greeted by forty or so girls ranging from kindergarten age to 16-year olds. We were ushered down to a basement play room-living room area. For a few minutes we all stood facing each other there, mutually enthusiastic, curious, and shy. The girls, all dark-eyed and dark-haired, had filed in front of us and filled out the room like a fidgeting choir. We introduced ourselves and finally broke the divide by mingling in with them and sitting down, at which point the room exploded with sound as we all began talking. Many of the girls don’t know any English at all, but a few of them had written out questions to ask us and could help interpret our answers for the others. We Westmont girls were a bit frustrated by not being able to communicate more effectively, but there was a surprising amount that we could learn from them despite the lack of shared language... All the girls that live there are Armenian, Orthodox Armenian Christians. Armenian is their primary language, but they obviously learn Türkçe. They go to Turkish school during the day, sometimes have English lessons with one of the women who work at the home, and sleep/eat/play at the Armenian home, taken good care of by each other and by the house mothers that preside over each well-kept room filled with bunk beds and the girls’ few belongings. A few of the girls are orphans, but most of them have families ( in “underprivileged” circumstances, or unhealthy ones).

Leah had brought a guitar along with us, and we started singing for the girls...to our surprise, they immediately and exuberantly joined in to Justin Bieber’s “baby...baby...baby...ohhhh!” and we all proceeded to sing a slew of other American pop songs. They also belted out one of Turkish superstar Tarkan’s songs and showed us their glossy Turkish tween magazines with pull-out posters of Zach Efron and Taylor Swift...they peppered us with questions about who was most popular and if we knew the lyrics to songs by Shakira and Bruno Mars. It was strange to encounter our American pop-culture there. A couple of girls from our group pulled out their phones and started playing music and snapping photos, and I was struck by a sadness that one of the first ways we related to these Armenian girls was on the terms of a pervasive Western culture that I wasn’t necessarily proud of...How badly, I thought, I wished the girls didn’t have some kind of desire to please us with their knowledge of American pop/teen culture, didn’t want to immediately ask us if each of us had a Facebook. I wanted them to see that they didn’t need to know who Taylor Swift was for us to be impressed with them. I wanted to show them that we could appreciate their own youth culture -- but then, much of the youth culture here borrows from Western example, so maybe the whole issue is unavoidable. Still I found myself wishing that Beyoncé and our iPhones would just go away. There was a dissonance between those things and the simplistic lifestyle of the Girls’ Home that itched at my heart. 

As the evening wore on, we were all touched by the Armenian girls’ love for each other and the attention they showered on us; we were also moved by how much they seemed to love the extra affection we gave them during our first visit. Many of us bonded right away: Yıldız, who is fifteen, one of the girls who stayed next to me the whole night, gave me her bracelet before we left the home... She wrapped it in a tiny, colorful plastic baggy and was visibly delighted when I murmured “Ohh!! Çok güzel, teşekkur ederim!!” as I unwrapped it and let her clasp it around my wrist. During dinner (after a beautiful Armenian prayer) I listened as some of the girls told me about their big dreams to become professors, teachers, fashion designers, doctors, and to travel to Brazil and the United States. I admired how they saw no limits to what they could do with their lives, even though they admitted that it was sometimes “çok zor” (very hard) to be Armenian in Turkey. How beautiful the girls were with their wide, dark brown eyes and thick black hair and quick smiles and laughter and olive-skinned hands that reached for our pale ones. There were some moments when we failed completely to understand each other and instead just laughed hopelessly and hugged each other. Even if we couldn’t communicate effectively, there seemed to be an understanding (tinged with a hint of sadness) that at least each party wished that we could... the most we could demonstrate sometimes was by a hug or a squeeze of a hand to show our affection for each other in lieu of words to verbally express our interest and care. When we had to leave, everyone queued up for cheek kisses and “Görüşürüz”es...several of the girls came back multiple times for more kisses, reminding me humorously of the little minions in Pixar’s Despicable Me returning to the line for more goodnight kisses from the newly tenderhearted Gru. 

February 31st 

Sometimes we leave the Armenian Girls’ Home utterly exhausted... the girls have so much energy and love to give, and also love and attention they clearly want to receive; but communication without language then reverts to body language, giggles, clapping games, hugs, pictures, and singing, all of which are wonderful but take quite a bit of energy to sustain. One of the girls patiently counted with me in Turkish all the way up to one hundred, and kept pointing to different objects so that I could work on my Turkish words. During our visit this week, the school’s governors and board came for dinner, so we stayed for longer than usual as the board members came around the tables to talk to us and the girls, congratulating them on this or that recent academic accomplishment or their good health, etc. The girls also sang two Armenian songs after we’d finished our meal, clapping their hands with their chanting melody. We asked them what the words meant, and they said the song was about love. One of the governors of the Home, an elderly and well-dressed woman with clean English, chatted briefly with me where I sat between my friends... “We must maintain our Armenian tradition. It is difficult when we live in Turkey. That is why the future of our youth is so important to us.” The governor also expressed gratefulness that we were there with girls; “It means very much to them to have you here visiting them,” she said. 

March 14th

After dinner at the Girls’ Home tonight, Yıldız ran upstairs and then returned with shy eagerness with a notebook, its inner cover fastidiously decorated with colorful magazine clippings (the words“Paris”, “Bruno Mars” each had their honored place) and handwritten notes. She turned page after page of the notebook; on each one was a carefully colored dress of a different design and pattern and style. They were creative and lovely, born of a girls’ imagination. Yıldız wants to be a fashion designer. Leah and I ooh-ed and aah-ed over the designs and lingered in admiration over our favorites. It made me happy that Yıldız wanted to share her dream with us, and that she delighted in our praise of her drawings. Her older sister is going to have a baby soon -- a boy. His is going to be named after a mountain in Armenia. Yıldız talks about it every Wednesday, and motions with her hands to show us how big her sister’s belly has grown. Next week is our last visit to see the girls... I’m going to miss them. I still wish I could communicate more with them. Several of the girls are “friends” with us now on Facebook, so I hope we can still stay connected in some way through that. Who knows, maybe someday they will come to visit America and I can see them grown up and actively pursuing all the glittering dreams they have. Or maybe I will come back to Turkey, and see them shining here in what they’ve succeeded in pursuing. 

March 21st

Yesterday we said our goodbyes to the Armenian girls. 

We sat in the little living room on the mismatched couches together and braided little bracelets... Many of the girls made two with the same colors, one for themselves and another for one of us. Yıldız made one for me of red, pink, and brown colored thread. I found out tonight that Yıldız means ‘star’ in Turkish. At dinner they honored our presence with slabs of helva and whole, hefty apples...the apples were obviously a treat and the girls devoured them with delight. But the whole evening was tinged with melancholy too, because all of us knew that it was the last time we would see each other. 

“Don’t forget me, don’t forget!” Sirarpi hugged me tightly. Another tiny girl clung silently to Leah. Some of the older girls had hefted Anna up completely off the ground and were tossing her up in the air before almost dropping her with breathless laughter. There were lots of kisses everywhere, lots of sad faces, confirmations of “Facebooks??” “Evet, evet!” and “I am missing you! Do not forget!” Gabriella started crying and buried her beautiful little face in my shoulder and held on to my hand until the last possible minute. There was another exchange of warm cheek kisses and “I love you”s and hands grasped in last goodbyes, then we were shuffled out the gate in the dark. And I wanted to break down into sobbing, uncontrollable tears, but didn’t. As we started walking back to where we could catch taxis back to Yeditepe, Leah said miserably, “I’m going to drown my sorrows in hot milk and coffee.” I think that part of the reason saying goodbye to the girls was so hard was because we realized, too, that in only a few more days we will have to say goodbye to Turkey as well. 

We want to stay in contact with the girls, even if only a few of them, for as long as we are able and in whatever way we can. The language barrier always makes our communication difficult, but we have built relationships with these sweet, sweet girls that we do not want to let go of. Anna said later that this is where our service project really begins. For all the love we gave, we received far, far more back. 

Blurry

The windshield wipers swished back and forth with what I thought of as panicked alacrity. I'd turned them up to as fast as they would go, and still the torrential rain made it almost impossible to see more than the two faint red embers of the taillights of the car in front of me. We were on the freeway and had slowed to about 40 miles per hour. It was like the washing machine world had leaked and flooded the basement from above with relish. I resisted the urge to pull over and leap around by the side of the road...the thrill of being drenched through in a matter of seconds would probably wear off once I had to get back in the car and drive for another 20 minutes in sopping wet clothes. I really dislike waterlogged socks. 

As I rounded a bend in the road the rain pounded down even harder and everything was terrifyingly blurry. 

I make that drive almost every day, from where I work downtown to where I'm living this summer, and every single time it's different. Sometimes, when I come back late at night and my eyelids are drooping with weariness, the only thing I really notice is the lyrics to a radio ballad that reminds me of a certain person, or the warning glint of a deer's eyes along the side of the road. Sometimes my mind is preoccupied to the point of numbness or just impatient to get from point A to point B. 

Times of self-imposed blurriness.

Other times are like visual awakenings, when I suddenly notice what I've never registered before. 

Like the way the light plays over the greens and blues of the evergreen forests in the distance, evoking operatic scenes of Das Rheingold from Wagner's Ring cycle. Or the way the mustard plants overtaking the side of the road are trying so hard to assert their yellow presence on the drab of the highway. Or the way that people in the passengers' seats stare wistfully out their windows, like they've just endured the brunt of heartbreak.

But even these things are passing moments of light and shadow, never repeated in exactly the same way and never to be noticed in exactly the same way. 

When I passed by the lake yesterday, the sun had finally peeked timidly out from behind the more assertive rainclouds on its way to setting and the water was tranquil in the almost-twilight. Half the world was in focus -- the trees above the water, the voluptuous forms of the clouds, the lakeside houses -- and the other half was a blurry upside-down version of the first half. And it was all excruciatingly lovely. 

And I was glad that I'd taken a mental pause to notice it all, all the details that I passed by every day. 

I remember when I was on the train in Germany, headed from Stuttgart to Frankfurt. It was the first lag of my journey home after having been gone over four months. My heart was heavy and my ears were stoppered with headphones playing Sondre Lerche's It's Over on repeat. I was sitting with my back towards the direction the train was moving. 

Almost everything was a blur. The German countryside, my mental checklist of what to keep track of during the journey, my thoughts of how to attempt a gracious and dignified parting with this particular adventure.

Within my line of sight, an elderly German gentleman was reading a book. The cover was graced with happy photographs of aged couples hand in hand and grinning. From what I could understand of the title, the book's content had something to do with love stories and humor. Every so often my elderly gentleman would break out into a smile or silent laughter. Then he'd readjust his glasses and smooth his shirtfront, but the mirth stayed in his eyes. I loved watching him, and a smile of my own broke out on my face. When I had to get off the train he helped me dislodge my portly little suitcase from where it had gotten stuck in the bahn's aisle way. 

For whatever reason, my eyes focused on that elderly man's face -- a pocket of defined detail in an overwhelming blur. 

Yesterday, in my favorite bookstore, I came upon a little book called Missed Connections. I turned to one of Sophie Blackall's illustrations of Missed Connections posts, where strangers seek strangers in seemingly irrelevant noticed details and in the what ifs of love, regret, and hope. I thought the idea was brilliant. 

There were illustrations of posts like, "LONG CURLY BROWN HAIR ON THE Q: You had pink fingernails and got on the Q train at Atlantic...I felt an irrational desire to invite you out to dinner. I found you stunningly beautiful, but you'll probably never know..." and "ICE SKATING IN CENTRAL PARK WE COLLIDED: You had on a furry hat with ear flaps and you crashed into me @ Wollman Rink today. You are a terrible but adorable skater." I turned to another illustration, and another. "KNITTING GIRL ON 7 TRAIN TO SUNNYSIDE: ...You were one of the warmest people I've met on a subway at 2 a.m., and a reminder why I love this city." 

I bought the book at once. 

Maybe we go about our lives in too much blurriness. No matter how bad our eyesight might be, I don't think we should ever underestimate the delicate joy of noticed details, the charming that peeps out from behind the commonplace. You can find something enchanting even in the routine. 

Cedar

"So tell me your favorite thing about Turkey! Tell me a story!" 

It was the well-intentioned request that I dreaded. I dreaded it not because I didn't have a response, but because I didn't have one ready (I should by now, but I still don't). Trying to choose one favorite moment, one story that would entertain, would be like trying to choose what star shone brightest in the sky on a dazzlingly starry night. 

Every single day of our semester abroad was filled to the brim with emotions and observations and concepts and sights and experiences. I wanted people back home to understand as much as possible. Where would I start? Secularism vs. Islamism in Turkish collective memory? The distinctive smell of roasting chestnuts that lingered in smokey clouds along Istiklal Street? Atatürk's piercingly clear eyes vigilantly inspecting the goings-on from a photograph taped to the mirror of a cluttered thrift shop? The fingers of my fifteen-year-old Armenian friend tightly intertwined in mine on a bitterly cold evening? The dangers of journalism and self-expression in the Turkish Republic? 

So to my shame I didn't say much of anything, even though I probably have more of substance to say than I've had in my entire life so far. 

I expected these situations, knew they would be part of that "re-entry" process...but what I failed to anticipate was that I would be most tongue-tied in front of my family and close friends, the people who are actually interested in what I have to say -- the people who will stick around to listen to a this-is-what-I-learned spiel for longer than two minutes.

But I always end up frustrated with myself for not grasping at these opportunities with both hands. It's like half my wardrobe has been reknit with new patterns, added to with more exotic yarns, but I'm hesitant to wear the sweaters because the weather's too warm or no one will notice all the stitches and colors that have gone into the remaking. Meanwhile what I really want to do is triumphantly pull the new sweaters over my head instead of shoving them to the back of the closet. So what if they might seem uncomfortable at first? Atypical fashion statements don't camp out in the comfort zone.

I was recently feeling nostalgic about the past (something you'd think my classes as a history major would have made me more wary of...sorry to let you down, Dr. Chapman) as I was feeling defeated by the request-and-response predicament I have described above. "I feel like I'm brimming with information and knowledge about another place that doesn't ever intersect with life here," I voiced to my friend's mom, "And I'm afraid everything's going to waste." 

"It's not," she said simply, but very wisely. "You need to wait for the right times to pour out what you want to share, and those times will come, and it will be worth the wait. And maybe you're doing it right now, even when you don't fully realize it." 

I desperately hope so. Without writing I imagine I might feel like Tinker Bell locked in Wendy's dresser drawer. 

Anyways, my friend's mother's words reminded my nostalgia-prone self of a memory I have, a seemingly insignificant one but a lustrously clear one. 

I loved the house where we lived for the first several years of my life. I loved curling up next to Grandma in the living room while she read out loud from The Prince and the Pauper or The Hobbit. I loved plucking dandelions from our lawn and rubbing their faces against my own until my cheeks were stained with yellow; I loved picking the tiny purple blooms off the heather in the backyard, even when I knew that mom would be exasperated with me when she saw the bloom-bare bushes later. I loved when the hill nearby was coated in snow and transformed into the perfect sledding slope. I loved our family's asparagus-eating races at the kitchen table, even though I didn't love the asparagus. 

I felt, as a little girl, that there were certain objects in our home that were particularly special. The plain, unadorned cedar wood chest at the end of the hallway was one of them. 

When I lifted the lid, I was always greeted with that familiar aroma of cedar -- masculinely fragrant, enchanting the way that the scent of a Christmas tree is, rich and bold and warm like a cello concerto and full-bodied like my Dad described a glass of really good red wine. I would open the chest like a treasure box just to inhale that smell. Then I would finger through the neatly-folded hand-knit sweaters -- woolen Norwegian-style patterns and pullovers that my mom had crafted for Dad from alpaca yarn. 

A couple of times (before the cedar chest was in use), Mom was devastated to discover that the sweaters she had labored over for hours and weeks had been eaten through in places by moths. Sometimes the damage was irreparable, and she would swear to never again store the fruit of her handiwork in the back of her closet. So my mom stacked the knits into the cedar chest, and the cedar chest protected them in the times when the sweaters weren't keeping her family warm on chilly Northwest Washington days (not limited to the winter months). I always knew when Dad was wearing one of those hand-knit sweaters, because he smelled wonderful, like the cedar chest did. 

I don't know what happened to that chest when we moved. But what I do know is that many of Mom's sweaters are still intact, free of moth-bitten holes. 

So I want to protect my memories and thoughts like a cedar wood chest protects beloved, labored-over sweaters. I might not always be able to wear out in the open what my life experiences have knitted together for me, and some days are better than others for donning sweaters, but I know that those yarns are worth preserving. 

You don't have to choose what star shines most brightly. Maybe you can admire the whole sky, and maybe someone will be willing to do that with you. 

Effort

It wouldn’t surprise me if the muse of one Fine Art had dipped her fingers into the thick oil paint of another form of Art before she inspired the colors of a new canvas. 

Our speech breathes in analogies, our movements are echoed in sound. Music unfolds a story, dance sketches an illustration, poetry feels a downbeat. 

“Play this piece like you’re a duck,” I’m told as I sit at the harp. “Calm on the surface, but paddling like crazy underneath. Your job is to make everything look effortless, like you haven’t worked for it at all.” 

Like ballet, I think. You pretend to float in flawless motion when your feet are in excruciating pain, but no one knows, because it’s

effortless. 

Like the strokes of a thin paintbrush in the hand of a skilled calligrapher. 

Like the gliding movement of a violist’s horsehair bow across the strings.

Effortless,

in the way that some people tell stories or read them, in ebbs and flows of honeyed vowels and gutsy consonants. 

Life would be dyed gray without the simultaneous emotional challenge and outlet for emotions that is Art, and Art intertwined in itself. 

The masking and revealing of feeling, of sound, of color. The restraint and liberation of movement and words. Even silence is something played, stretched taut in calm. 

But underneath the surface of 

effortless

pause, 

there is a breath that feeds energy to the next pirouette, the next audible pulse, the next daub of paint on canvas.  

Balloon

Sometimes I feel like the unknown of “The Future” floats balefully over me like a birthday balloon that’s escaped a little hand and drifted up to the unreachable ceiling of Costco only to be stuck there for weeks on end. That which is uncertain about The Future far outweighs (or outfloats, rather) that which is assured. The longer I spend in college, the less I know what I actually want to do with my life when I get out of it, a sentiment I expressed recently to my good friend. Her response? “FINALLY I’m not the only one who doesn’t have their entire life figured out! Or any of it, for that matter...” 

I’ll probably always feel inadequate so long as I’m not spectacular at math, but occasionally I remind myself that I am equipped with other skills. My other consolation is that if I end up in heaven, at least I can always find employment as a harpist there. 

Fortunately, last week I perceived the balloon of The Future float down a few inches closer to where I stood far beneath it. My mom was volunteering as a coordinator at last month’s Suzuki Association of the Americas’ conference in Minneapolis (the land of enormous malls and impressive lightening storms). I tagged along to join her and the group of harpists (students and teachers) that had gathered from across the United States to discuss teaching methods and practicing strategies, learn more about harp regulation, introduce new Suzuki repertoire for harp, observe master classes, and more. We were surrounded by 800 other musicians (many of whom were violinists, of course) attending the conference.

And a wonderful thing happened. 

I’d abandoned a certain balloon to the ceiling of Costco, and I now wanted it back. I realized it as I tried to remember all the steps to re-felting a harp. I realized it as all the harpists sat around in an informal circle laughing hysterically while sharing stories about wedding-gig mishaps. I realized it as I pulled sound from a harp fresh with rich tone and varnish from Lyon and Healy. I realized it as my mind worked frantically to process umpteen different instructions and the notes on the page as I played a new piece during a two-hour lesson. I realized it observing virtuosic (and hard-working) ten-year old harpists perform spectacularly. I realized it as I saw my mother’s colleagues again -- many of whom have pioneered the Suzuki method for harp, and many of whom will I’m sure be legends in the harp world like their teachers before them -- and as I realized that their hair is graying and their hands are tired.

I’ve grown up listening to my mom teaching harp lessons in her studio...I’ve watched some of her students progress from plucking out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to rippling through harp concertos...I’ve heard all her hours of practicing, and I’ve struggled through my sometimes more grudging hours of repetition and fine-tuning (no pun intended) as well. I’ve observed her frustration when some of her most incredibly talented students quit the harp and decide they want to play soccer or guitar instead. I’ve known how much arduous time and effort she has poured into kids, teenagers, and adults who might not tell her for years, if ever, how taking harp lessons transformed their lives. 

I’ve seen her love for music and musicianship, her dedication to her students, her attention to detail and excellence. I admired these things, but never particularly understood them. The older I get, however, the more I appreciate her pursuit of teaching music well: analyzing learning styles, motivating “difficult” students through sheer creativity, acting as a psychologist of sorts between kids and parents, instilling musical sensitivity and skill...adapting, adapting, adapting. 

I’ve watched and literally listened to the hardships and the joys, and participated in many of those as her student and daughter.

When I was a little girl I never questioned that I wanted to share in her experience as a teacher, especially in the triumphs and sweetnesses of that experience. But as I grew older, perhaps I became disenchanted with the idea. That balloon looked drab, limp and faded up in the rafters. I didn’t quit playing the harp (obviously) but I told myself that I wanted to aim for other pursuits -- I would be an actress, a dancer, a magazine editor, an author! Oh and I suppose I could teach harp “on the side.” 

As if people who really cultivate a passion for music can ever put that love on the back burner. 

As if you can refuse to accept the circumstances of a music-infused lifetime (however short) that gift you with sensitivities, experiences, observations, and relationships of beautiful value. 

As if we can ever really laugh at God, except to say, “You told me so.” He’s the one making the balloons, after all.

And so that was the wonderful thing that happened last week -- the realization of how playing harp didn’t need to be the only skill with which I resonated, but nonetheless the realization of how much I would love to teach music. It’s been pulsing in my blood all along. 

I know I’m not the only college student to feel overwhelmed by so much that is unknown about The Future. There are still a lot of baleful balloons floating over my head. But there are ways to pull some of them back down from the ceiling.