33tv: Pre-Trip Preparation

Today is D-Day! I'm leaving for my first domestic stop, Denver. So I thought I'd share some of my pre-trip prep thoughts. This is the first of many videos to come, so I hope you enjoy it.

Insert Terminator quote here

Socially, my friends tend to fracture into four categories: work, school, church, and family. Of course there’s probably a miscellaneous category (insert GLEE quote here: “Cause everybody’s got a random”), like the local pizza shop owners that remember your name and preferences and chat every time they see you. But, for the most part those four categories cover the gamut for me.  With one week left, I’ve begun to say “see you later” to quite a few friends and emotionally it has been enlightening.

Take work for example.

Last week my co-workers said goodbye by hosting two different events. Over burgers, fries, cupcakes and chatter I realized that saying goodbye to work is really only bittersweet. The sweet part is not working… (insert Forrest Gump quote here:  "That’s all I have to say about that!”) The bitter part is leaving the people I’ve worked with.

For the last 4+ years, I’ve spent eight hours a day, five days a week, and 45+ weeks a year with the same people. We've celebrated each other’s marriages, divorces and new babies and we've grieved with each other when family members passed. We've volunteered together by lending out our talents or buying chocolate/cookies from someone’s kid. We've celebrated every holiday together at work events where we ate ourselves into oblivion and when Michael Jackson died we honored him with our own Thriller montage. We've argued, laughed, cried, and forwarded the most inappropriate work emails to each other for more than 1800 hours a year, so needless to say I’m going to miss these people.

My “school friends” will also be missed.

This week, we finally walked across the stage and received rolled up pieces of paper with advertisements inviting graduates to spend even more money with the college. Hard left: the exorbitant amount I had to pay to get a master’s degree should include photos, caps & gowns, key chains, license plates and everything else to “help commemorate my experience!” (insert What’s Love Got To do With It quote here: “You wrong Anna Mae.”) But I digress…

We worked in cohorts during my master’s program; meaning that I went through the entire program with the same eight people.  There’s no faster way to get to know someone, than to place them in a pressure cooker together and make them work. So, seeing these people walk across the stage and accept their degrees was completely gratifying – we did this together!

Whether it’s friends from high school, college, or church, at different times in my life I have literally captured pieces of myself in the presence of these people and now I understand how fabulous it is to have really great friends in the peripheral. I say “peripheral” because these are the friends who you may not talk to every day, every month, or even every year, but if you see them in public or know that they need help with something in private, you’d run over an old lady carrying a disabled newborn in a rush just to say “hi” or to help them in whatever way you can.

With that said, see you later The Jones Group and bye, bye Mercy College. "Hasta La Vista, Baby!"

Grey Matter

As a black American, I generally move through life understanding that without knowing me, people usually see me as black first, female second, and then American. So, I in turn have learned to identify with my race first, my gender second, and my nationality last. Whether or not this is good or bad is neither here, nor there; it is what it is. However, I have travelled internationally before and recognize that although my race is often viewed as a novelty in many countries, more often than not I am viewed primarily as an American, period. So, without realizing it, at times I find myself defending our values, our motives, and our way of life whenever I get into heated conversations with someone from another country.

For me, this type of blind patriotism feels as odd as using the term “our” when describing anything American. We aren’t one big monolith of ideals, values, races, religions, cultures, ages, incomes etc. We are many, many shades of grey functioning in a media driven world that exploits only black and white. We are the spaces in between the text of history books that expound on the extremes.  

For some issues, I am more fired up. I am Alabama, “Audemus jura nostra defendere” (We dare defend our rights) or Massachusetts, “Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem” (By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty). While on other issues I am more laid back and willing to allow the issue to run its course. I am New Mexico, “Crescit eundo” (It grows as it goes) or Washington, “Al-ki” (By and by). Yet, most of the time I am hopeful, seeking a voice of understanding and compromise and grateful that I live in a country that allows me to seek a different voice. I am Rhode Island, “Hope.” I am Maryland, “Fatti maschii, parole femine” (Manly deeds, womanly words) and I am Kentucky, “Deo gratiam habeamus” (Let us be grateful to God). With all of these emotions and feelings balled tightly and wound into one person, I recognize that at the end of the day, I am ultimately Oregon, “Alis volat propriis” (She flies with her own wings); I am but one spec of gray on that spectrum of ideas known as the American way.

Do I consider myself an American? Absolutely! Do I consider myself an American who agrees with every domestic and international policy “we” have undertaken? Absolutely not!  So today, I would be remiss to say that with the death of Osama Bin Laden, my bravado has been shaken by the thought of travelling through a world even more polarized by increasing violence. I am praying even harder that people will see me and welcome me as an individual with various and changing thoughts and principles and that I, in turn, can open my ears, heart and mind and receive them in the same vein. And in light of the current political climate around the world, I pray that we all can recognize the shades of grey in each other and will come to grow and move like New York, “Excelsior” (Ever upward).