In my last post, I agreed to go from esoteric to intellectual. So, here I go …
As an undergraduate in college, at first I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do … well, in a way, that’s a lie. I actually knew what I wanted to do but I was unaware of any path that could get me there and surely the institutions I attended couldn’t see my vision or my path. Therefore, I had to create the path on my own, which I’ve been doing ever since—and that’s why I am passionate about helping other people develop unique structures that support the movement towards their destinies. I began college in September of 2001, so my college life was colored by the events of September 11, 2001. In March of 2003, we went to war, and that was really it for me. That was when I decided to become a political science major with a focus on global cultures, global politics. Up until that time, however, I had taken quite a few cultural studies courses and wanted to create my own major that would eventually lead to my being able to help shift the narratives of history that were told and the ways in which they were told.
It was so obvious to me at that point that history books were lying, or at least telling only a very small portion of the story. I knew there were so many other stories and I wanted to tell them, I wanted to see them next to one another. I had a clear vision at that time of how all of these stories would be presented in book form. I had no idea at that time the sorts of technologies that would become available to be able to tell stories. Facebook was only just starting. YouTube wasn’t a thing—the idea that people would be able to make videos at the drop of a dime from their phones wasn’t conceivable to me at that point. Few people are as critical about technology as I am. And yet, at the same time, I have so much hope about the ways in which technology, when used mindfully, can shift the narratives that dictate our lives, can shift how we understand ourselves, our collective and individual histories, and the ways in which we share them with other people.
Growing up, I often read and watched narratives about people of color and people in underprivileged situations because they offered me the most inspiration. I had a different sensibility than most of the people surrounding me. I was considered different—and I WAS (and remain) “different”. While other people my age were reading Seventeen Magazine, I was hidden in the corner reading Nikki Giovanni—still one of my heroes to this day. (Check out a beautiful and funny interview with her here). I started college at the Catholic University of America as a music major with a vocal concentration. Yet, I didn’t want to sing as a career, so I quickly changed my major. I thought maybe I was called to ministry (youth ministry—because I couldn’t be a priest, of course. During high school, I was pretty convinced I wanted to be a nun, but what I really felt called to at that time was some combination of medicine and priesthood—clearly a discussion for another day.) Hopefully, you can already get the sense that creativity, spirituality, medicine/health/wellness, and being a bit … unconventional(?) have always been a part of who I am and what I’ve felt called to. I left Catholic University after my first semester because, given that I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to study, I wanted to be on a larger campus with more diverse offerings and the freedom to explore different ideas and disciplines in the way I felt called to. In a way, this transition created a crisis in my soul that became yet another inkling that perhaps I was called to something different than what I’d been able to imagine up until that point (and even at that time, I had a pretty active imagination).
I can recall 4 classes at the University of Delaware that really changed my life and my own understanding of my work in the world. Those classes continue to play into what I’m doing now and when I had a dissertation crisis many years later, I returned to those classes to help me shape the dissertation that I would actually finish, the dissertation I love, the dissertation that inspired me to create the Rose Hip Road Trip in the first place. My next post will name those classes, the people who taught them, and describe how they have had a direct impact on what I’m doing now.
As always, thank you for reading