Today, I returned to my site with a friend. As we were sitting on the lounge behind Rhoads South, looking at the field without a single person, she told how she dislikes being in an open space on her own. She mentioned the feeling of loneliness as she stands there in the middle a huge grass lawn, surrounded by nothing but the air and sounds of nature, which surprised me. It seemed to me that an empty open space made her insecure and feared. However much I try to understand the logic behind her feelings, I cannot imagine myself in such condition. I am not brave enough to walk in a strange wood alone; however, when it comes to a place familiar or known-as-safe to me, I enjoy being in an open space. It is relaxing to me when I am able to cast a look faraway and up high above, to realize the green field so big and the blue sky so high. I attribute personality to our difference. While I tend to enjoy my own personal space, my friend cannot stay without an accompany. While I am looking forward to being on my own, my friend feels insecure when she is alone. As such, even though both of us love to be outside in nature, criterias defining our favorite places differ.

For most of my life I was brought up in a household where my father thought he could control us. I stayed pretty quiet when I was younger and followed my mother’s lead. My mom had plenty of opportunities to speak up and say something to him but I believe she stayed silent because she didn’t want to cause any problems. After a long day of work, the last thing she needed was an argument with my father. But as my siblings and I grew older, we also grew tired and angry of having to keep our mouths shut just to make him happy. I don’t even think that I kept my mouth shut because of my dad. I think I did it to make my mom happy.

Looking back at this experience, I see silence as being equal to obedience or even fear. Even if I were walking down the stairs to get out the door to run to the bus stop, my dad would yell at me in Khmer to “keep it down” and point his finger accusingly at me. His booming voice and index finger made me feel so small and helpless. It made me feel like I couldn’t ever do anything right, like I was a disappointment. He wanted me to walk around quietly and conduct myself in an unobtrusive manner, like all the other Asian women he had come across. Even if I were quieter walking down the steps, I knew that if I did what he said then I would be reinforcing his control on the rest of the family. His controlling ways were unbearable and unhealthy for my family and I had to find a way to stop him.

Where I am sitting now: in a Starbucks on Broadway near 110th St, on the Upper West Side of New York, nearly 10 o'clock on Saturday night, the only place and time I've managed to get internet access and a modicum of space and time to myself. Better do this posting now; tomorrow will be full with rehearsal, and I need to practice my parts before that. This is actually OK with me as a way to live (so far...) The pleasure in the work to be done, and the stimulation and challenge of what I'm learning, more than outweigh the physical fatigue. So I sit and try to travel mentally back to the Labyrinth, and to my time there on Thursday, only a couple of days ago. My path from there to here is like a labyrinth in itself, twisting and turning through different locations and activities, meeting new people, trying to keep track of the threads of different conversations, different communication processes. I'm grateful for the opportunity to think myself back to the peaceful moments at the (Bryn Mawr) Labyrinth, just as I was grateful to have an assigned hour of contemplation. It makes me think, now, that integral to our ecological disaster in the present-day world, is the sheer pace of our life, the speed of it, the quantity of activity and experience we expect to pack into every day. How on earth can we expect to be aware of what is going on around us, of the existence and concerns of non-human beings, of the effect we are having on them and they on us, when we have assigned ourselves a more than full schedule we can barely keep up with?

Hello Everyone!

I just read this amazing post from wordpress and I absolutely love this quote and just wanted to share this!

"So, I guess my lesson is that sometimes going and watching the swifts is just a nice way to pass the time, but sometimes watching animals live out their purpose in life makes us question our own and helps us better understand our true nature. Fear is an amazingly powerful thing that can bury us under its weight if we don’t keep it in check. If the swifts were afraid of coming home to roost because of the peregrine falcons that prey on them each season, then the whole ecosystem would collapse. The swifts don’t avoid their journey because of the battle that awaits them at that chimney, they show up every year without fail and remind us that the journey is hard, but we have to go on it anyway."

http://theperpetualvagabond.com/2012/09/18/the-swifts-conflict-decision-making-and-following-my-dreams/

I am a firm believer in the lessons and teachings of the natural world and this is a beautiful one.

Hope your weekends are swell,

Sruthi

Hey guys, so below I am posting all of the places the different codes from the mural sent me. A few are audio clips, it's pretty cool!

http://familyinterruptedproject.com/topics/uncategorized/

http://familyinterruptedproject.com/

http://familyinterruptedproject.com/audio/EXOFFchoices.mp3

http://familyinterruptedproject.com/audio/MIMICfailedasaparent.mp3

http://muralarts.org/

To break the silence

is murder! (of sorts) and a thousand liberations- but also

I have no idea what you're talking about

Maybe if we weren't silent, we would understand?

Said the teacher to the class.

Then She looked out the window

Her words brought the class to its full attention, they wondered if they could keep going.

She did.

Hi. What?!

I love sitting in silence with you guys. Love it!

I love sitting in silence, but I did get more and more anxious as the paper moved around

She exuded privilege.

Her language spoke to wealth dating back as far as the eye could see in her lineage.

But what kind of wealth was it? She felt rich of possessions, yet lonely and empty.

I feel a kind of turmoil I cannot clearly articulate or define but the need for expression of this turmoil is so overwhelming

I just want to know what's going to happen next,

but please tell me in silence.

Hi ladies,

Soon after our fishbowl activity, I expressed my thoughts on my wordpress blog (for those who do not know, I blog for Bryn Mawr). I wanted to invite you all to read this post in hopes that you will express your own sentiments and always be reminded of the special moments we had during that activity.

360 love,

Esty

The link is also here just in case the embedded one does not work:

http://banteremaitre.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2012/09/18/reflection-on-my-stormy-day/