Why?
My Roots & My Choice
I study Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Entrepreneurship & Innovation. A lot of writing, but not creative. We are told to cut out the fluff, include only the important information, assume your reader has basic knowledge of the topic, and above all, for the love of God, cut out the fluff.
I found that this mostly translated into how I was writing during the workshops.
I wrote notes and simple short sentences I was really proud of but was never able to put them into an elaborate story. I wrote hybrids of pros poems, lacked too much detail and cohesiveness to be a story, but was too weird and followed no poetry rules. My writing was much like a lab report, no real subject. It mainly consisted of facts and instructions. Simple notes strung together.
I chose this program because it was the most out of my comfort zone. When asked to fill a visual memory box what better things to include than those that made me uncomfortable? I included what little things made their way inside my shoe and slightly bothered me throughout my travel.
The visual memory
The box filled w/discomfort
Rock bruising my shoe
Seaweed tangling my steps
Much like my decision to come on this trip. Uncomfortable but not painful. In the end, a lasting memory.
HIRAETH
The idea of hiraeth was introduced very early on in the program and revisited at the end. I dare say that it was one of the most impactful workshops and produced the most passionate work.
I believe this is the reason I enjoy traveling, to try and find that sense of belonging. Then again, it’s an everlasting quest.
My first year in the US I learned about football. The Steelers won the Superbowl and I remember watching black and yellow Disney balloons bounce on the tv screen in the basement interrupting the Suite Life on Deck episode when Debbie Ryan first joined. I learned about the sport at school and first practiced it in gym class. Learning how to properly hold and throw a football I quickly wanted to rush to the store and buy my very own oval ball. As I began learning about these American traditions, I didn’t realize how far I had drifted from the endzone. The playing field of my life was getting longer and longer.
I first experienced this sense of disappointment years later when I took my first solo trip. I visited Seattle for a month and explored everything there was in the city. For the first time, I felt free. I was the happiest I had been after years of struggling to leave my bed. When I returned home, I was eager to go back. Not only to return to the city, but that feeling that allowed me to break some of the chains that were drowning me. Upon my return, with family and not alone this time, I couldn’t find a place that gave me the same sense of freedom. I roamed the city in search of an experience to transport me back, wishing I had never left the first time. My travels continued beyond that and I finally had a chance to go home.
The summer of 2018, almost 10 years after I arrived in the US, I took a trip through my childhood. I stopped in Rome and, while it wasn’t exactly as I remembered, I had a great sense of exploration. A local asked me about a bus line before realizing I didn’t speak any Italian. After my day navigating the metro and enjoying some pizza off the tourist tracks, I felt accomplished. I had conquered the city and left with the same euphoria as I once had when I first started traveling. It wasn’t until I arrived in Jordan did I have a culture shock to my own culture. I never felt like I fully belonged to the title of “being an American.” Yet, here I was in the center of my developing years, feeling on the outside again. I arrived embellished with tattoos and piercings that didn’t blend in, although otherwise I looked exactly like everyone else. Slightly olive skin and frizzy hair. I went to the place of my first language and was unable to communicate.
My Arabic knowledge stopped at the level of an 11-year-old. While I can still understand, talk with my family, read and write common phrases I knew, my skill wasn’t developing. Soon enough, my ability to assimilate into my once home was gone. Furthermore, I began exploring my passions and learning about my field of study in a language other than my own. Now, I have no clue how to express my deepest thoughts in my native tongue. That’s when I realized that the field goal was beyond sight.
REFLECTIONS
PLACE = point in space + self (memory + imagination)
Have you ever traveled to arrive home?
A mixture of places, home is in between- reminded of different things.
What do I know when I’m in this place that I cannot know anywhere else?
What does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself?
Here vs. there
Here
I’m never going to be this free.
Safe wandering about at the stroke of midnight.
Going out to the local shops where everyone knows each other. People would know of any crime here and take care of one another.
No homeless tents lying around. No rows of empty infrastructure.
Café to get fresh welsh cakes daily
binders have 2 rings
houses have names
I’m never going to see this much -Green.
Never this much quiet & peace.
There
I go back to no green
No small towns
The houses are all the same.
There will be plenty of water fountains.
3 hole punchers
Industry
Never this much… -sheep
I don’t mean just the animal but everything that comes with it
It’s a sheep land.