My entry for this week is about places I feel authentic, and what that means.
This is a topic I have often considered, though admittedly more so while at Claremont than now at Yale. The places where I feel authentic are easy to name. I feel more myself when I am in Portland than anywhere else, and most specifically, when I am at the Zoo. I'm sure this does not require much teasing out. I am lucky in that I grew up in the same house my entire life, with the same neighbors and the same family composition. Most of my friends grew up in Portland too, so I am able to have people in my life such as one of my best friends, Claire, and her family whom I have known since I was five years old. My parents are both immigrants, and my father spent most of his childhood moving from India to Pakistan to Bangladesh to Minnesota, all before the age of thirteen. My mother's formative years were a bit less itinerant, but her displacement from Iran into the United States was and seems to still be a continuously traumatic experience for her. Therefore, a sense of place has always been vastly important to me and I vehemently and proudly call Portland home.
I have again and again in my journaling career tried to express the feeling I get when I come home for the first time after being away for awhile. It's always a similar experience, driving into the horse-shoe driveway framed with crippled brick pillars, and entering the house through the bizarre but unique mudroom. The first thing I always see is the sea-foam green carpeting in my father's office and I always fail to remove my shoes before traipsing through the beige and peach dining room. Once I enter the living room and see the piano where I spent so many childhood hours finding my first art, and the Persian rugs that I only then realize I'd been missing for so long, I start to feel like I am exhaling in a very slow but substantial way.
So this is where my sense of authenticity begins to take root. Short trips to Portland are rarely satisfying and leave me with long lists of things I hoped to accomplish and places I hoped to go but never found enough time to complete. Thus when summer comes around, I regard it with an almost religious reverance. Every summer since I was fourteen, I have spent my months at the same place. In high school, as a teen volunteer, I found the zoo as an escape. For the first time in my life, I had found a place where I could be the leader I had always wanted to be, and where my peers and friends spanned a large diversity of ages and backgrounds. My supervisors respected and trusted me and the director of my program became one of the most important adults in my life. After four years, I left the program with an amazingly close group of friends, a network of support, and a strong vision for my future.
In following summers, I developed a new zoo identity for myself as a camp counselor and eventually as a camp specialist. I still had my close friendships and network of support and was still able to exercise my skills and grow as a leader. Over time, I also realized that I had a strong passion for education and certain talents as a teacher and child manager. For three months every year, my day time hours were entirely devoted towards one cause: the advancement of my camp, making every day perfect for every child while simultaneously bringing my staff closer together and promoting teamwork within our unit.
And every day that I accomplish this, I feel my rush of authenticity come over me. For me, being authentic, truly being myself, happens here, in my so-called element. To feel authentic, I need to feel like I am a leader wherever I am, and feel like I am singularly devoting my time towards a common cause that others around me share. To be myself, I need to know that what I take does not come at the expense of anyone else and that while leading others I am giving back to a much greater good. Being myself means that I can sing, jump, dance, motivate, unite, step up, step back, inspire, invest, and so much more without reserve. It requires the help of my close friends, a tight groups of incredible young men and women without whom I would have failed long ago. And it requires places like the zoo. Where sacrifices are given and intangible gifts received every day by a diverse group of people who want nothing more than to educate, nothing more than to help in little ways.
Preparing for the coming summer, I watch my classmates plan for trips around the globe. But I want nothing more than to be able to continue to give and take what the zoo has to offer, and be able to be myself. Every summer is vastly different and this summer I know that many of the things that I loved so dearly the year before will no longer be there. But the last and perhaps truest ingredient towards creating my sense of self is that love. I look forward to the ability to once more, in a different but equally influential capacity, be able to share and expand that love that I have to a new year of friends, teammates, and students.
And hopefully sing, jump, and dance a little more.
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