Travel Week

We talked about it already in our meeting on Monday but I will tell the story again so I can come back to it in awhile and relearn what I learned this past week.

Travel week was nothing short of phenomenal. It is amazing what happens when you take 19 college kids and bring them to a new place for 5 days (with no internet or cell phone service).

Life became about the people next to us, not the next thing on our to-do lists. For a few days we lost track of Facebook notifications and friends back home and bonded like never before.

There is something about being in a place different from 'home base' that is good for the soul, both individually and collectively. We shared experiences unique to our group and spent time in places where we felt like no one else had ever been - our own little secret memories. Words and photos just don't do the places justice.

First, a long hike on "The Road to Nowhere," where Forney Creek meets Fontana Lake. The dynamic of the hike was to walk a little ways having a one-on-one conversation, naturally lose track of you companion through some sort of casual change in pace, then start a one-on-one with someone else. A few times there were groups of 3 or 4 having conversations but again those dynamics naturally changed as someone picked up their pace or stopped for a drink of water. I think the subconscious knowledge that we would have another 4 days together after that day helped to keep the conversation easy - we could talk about things and not be feeling like every topic had to be concluded or packaged with a nice little bow. We could release thoughts and let them linger in the silence without needed concrete answers or solutions to the issues we faced.

Friday we got a glimpse of the scale of the forest. We started with a hike through Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, a patch of land with trees that are hundreds of years old and were spared from the logging industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There were poplars that were 8' in diameter. This hike was quieter and more introspective as I just thought about how long those trees had been sitting there, growing and growing and growing. It was unfathomable to picture winter after winter, summer after summer, those trees growing and thriving; their roots winding throughout the ferns and vines on the forest floor. It reminded me to have patience in my circumstances - that just waiting a few more days or a few more weeks doesn't have to be painful or miserable - it can actually be healing. A later hike to the Wesser Bald fire tower (with a 360 degree view of the mountains) reminded me again how very very small I am in the grand scheme of things. I wasn't discouraged by this, but just humbled and put in my place a little bit. The selfishness dissipated and I became more aware of the fact that the world truly doesn't revolve around me.

Saturday was a continuation of the miracle of group dynamics. There were no cliques, no one left out, just an overwhelming feeling of acceptance, humility, and belonging. I wish there were words adequate to describe the way acquaintances became friends - it was like the time warp thing you've talked about - where time goes slower and faster and somehow in a matter of days you have all these best friends and you feel like you've known them much longer than you actually have.

I think the success of the trip was a combination of factors:
-Being in a place other than our context, we were unfamiliar with our environment and so we learned about it together
-All of us went into the trip open to experience new things and get to know people
-We went in with a willingness to step outside of our comfort zones and truly explore - talking with locals to find the answers to the questions we had
-We shared seats and beds and water bottles and snacks and hairbrushes and shampoo and stories and memories and fears and failures and goals and hopes and experiences
-No one in the group found the need/desire to drink alcohol - we were too busy/exhausted having fun to even want to party
-The experiences we were sharing were unique to the trip - it was a combination of once in a lifetime experiences
-There were lots of firsts: first hikes, first time wake boarding, first time jumping off the roof of a houseboat into the lake, first time taking site measurements, etc
-Not only did we learn about a new area, but we learned how to practice a new way of seeing the world and absorbing it more fully than ever before.
-The trip was full of genuine affirmation and encouragement. Ugly words weren't spoken. Period.

I wish I knew more about how to put into words the moments of magic on this trip. I just felt so fortunate to have been a part of it and to begin to look into how I as a leader and as an architect can begin to create those same types of experiences for others in the future.

Stream of Consciousness

This might be a big rambling mess... it probably will be - I am not planning to edit, I am just going to write (and write and write.)

My head and my heart are full tonight of all different aspects of stories and I don't really know where to start. There are my thoughts on the book, my thoughts on my own stories, my thoughts on Bob and Emily, on September 11th, my thoughts on "my" Nanny, my friends, the SERVErs, your stories, how stories influence architecture, my thoughts of the Cherokee Indians and their stories (random but relevant because I am researching the Cherokees for my studio project), my thoughts on storytelling and faith, and a million other things. I wish I had the words to make all my observations sound beautiful.

I have loved this book and how relevant it is to me - the main problem is I find myself wanting to hear stories more than I want to do the rest of my schoolwork. One question asked at the end of chapter one, "Choose a family heirloom or artifact and write down as much of it's history as you know," turned into an hour on the phone with my mom then an hour on the phone with my grandmother. We talked about a specific piece of furniture in my parent's house that belonged to my grandfather's mother, then the ring my mom wears that is from my Great-Great-Great Grandmother from Italy, my brother's bedroom set that was my dad's growing up that my grandfather bought the month he got a bonus for being employee of the month at the car dealership he worked at in the early 60's, etc. We talked about the items that had joined our family in my lifetime and how they will now have stories too - the polish pottery I bought for my mom for Christmas one year that started her collection, the antique dresser that we saw on the curb and fell in love with that is now in my room here in Blacksburg, the infamous church pew that is currently collecting dust in my room at home as it waits for me to have a home of my own. These are all just objects - if they were to be gone tomorrow my life would not be any different but yet they are a part of who I am. Our possessions are not significant because of WHAT they are, but because of what they stir up inside of us - the memories and stories of times we won't ever have again. They make our memories tangible.

I read this article about September 11th that contained a story I hadn't heard before - about a firefighter from Michigan who responded to the attacks and spent a week in New York helping on Ground Zero. He found a business card amidst the rubble and decided to contact the family of the man who the business card belonged to. It was amazing to see how much this business card comforted the family of the man who was lost in the attack... this one little piece of his last day on earth. His body was never recovered from the debris but his family has this one business card and the story the firefighter has told them about where he found it, including photos of the particular spot on Ground Zero and the occurrences that led to him finding it. All of a sudden such a small piece of paper became a priceless link to a life lost. Our things make our memories tangible.

September 11th has been on my mind a lot this week. I have recognized in others an utter need to tell stories over the last few days. When September 11th has been mentioned, without fail, someone in the conversation I am in will say "I was on my way to work when I heard on the radio..." "I was teaching in elementary school and got an e-mail..." "I was watching the morning news..." I truly believe there is not a single American who doesn't remember where they were when they found out the planes hit the towers. We all have our stories about different events in our lives, but when it comes to a mutual experience like that - where at the same moment of the same day in history millions of people remember the specifics of their own experience - there is major power in that. It fascinates me that as I was sitting in my 6th grade math class completely unaware of what was going on, my dad was driving on 395 through Alexandria, no more than 1/2 a mile from the Pentagon, watching flight 77 transform from a low-flying plane into a ball of flames. Where were you, Jake? You remember too - maybe even mundane details of the day. It is amazing how tragedy heightens our sense of connectedness - it reminds us that we are all living our stories simultaneously and for a few moments we lose sight of ourselves and our self-centeredness.

On April 16th, 2007 there had been a big rain storm in Northern Virginia that knocked out all power for about 15 hours. I got up in the morning, got ready in the dark, and went to school. I had a stomach ache and so I called my dad to get permission to go home for a little while and take a nap. I left school at 10:16 am (the end of 2nd period) (I couldn't miss the whole day because I had lacrosse practice that afternoon and couldn't miss it.) I went home, slept for two hours (in a house with no power, so no news), and came back to school to hear about the shooting at "my" school, my virginia tech. It's my story about the day... collected as little snippets of what I can remember. In those same moments that I was sitting in 1st and 2nd period, you were on the 2nd floor of Norris Hall collecting your own story about the day. When you shared your story with me, my own story seemed so insignificant compared to yours. I think that's how stories work though (when it comes to tragedies at least). When it happens, you have your one single story - your perspective and memory of how things occurred. As you hear more stories of the same timeline of events, your story changes too. The stories of your friends become a part of your own and you develop a more thorough experience of the event. I still have my own story, and it is still the one I think of first (because I actually lived it) but I have more than that too.

There is a lot more I have been thinking about but I am sure I will get to all of the topics eventually. I am looking forward to meeting with you in the morning and getting to talk (and listen.)

Dear Jake,

(I was going to start with, "So my teacher and I were talking yesterday," but felt like that was awkward since you are pretty much my only reader. So anyways. That's that.)

I was really challenged by our conversation yesterday about story-catching. I feel like "active listener" and "deep listener" are really overused terms that don't accurately represent the skill I am desiring to develop this semester. I want to be an active listener in that I can ask questions that prompt reflection or self-problem-solving (if that makes sense). I want to be a deep listener and not just offer solutions or bring my own stories into a conversation that was supposed to be about the other person.

I tend to think of "active" and "deep" listening as exercises contained to one conversation at a time. Often when I decide I am going to work on actively or deeply listening I have this distracting dialogue going in my head of "am I actually listening well? What do I say next to prompt reflection? How can I give them a good solution and find a way to make them think it is their own solution?" etc. My own thoughts become too loud for the exercise to be of any success and I end up exhausted from it and discouraged from making it a habit. I want to become a better listener not by consciously "practicing" on particular conversations but just by having genuine interest in the people around me and having a longing to know their stories.

I guess the term I think is most accurate is that I want to be an "absorbent listener." I want to develop a natural tendency to really hear what my friends are saying - not just the words that come out of their mouths but also the way they say those words. I have learned so far that there is a great deal of significance to what stories a person chooses to tell about their experiences. I want to recognize the significance of the parts of their stories they choose to tell.

I talked to a girl last night who is a freshman at Tech and asked her what she liked to do. She mentioned that she liked to play tennis with her dad and that every summer she goes to New England to a tennis camp with her cousins. She talked about how she is the youngest of her siblings and so her cousins (who are younger) often feel like her little brothers and sisters and that she loves being around them. It was fascinating to me (after our conversation yesterday morning) that her entire life has millions of stories and when I asked her about her life she chose one small aspect of all the magnitude of possibilities. Instead of choosing to say, "I like tennis," she chose to tell the story behind it. I learned not only that she likes tennis but that she is close with her dad, enjoys spending time with him, has family in New England, values her relationships with her cousins, and she has older siblings. This doesn't mean her mom is insignificant in her life, that her other cousins who don't play tennis aren't important, or that she doesn't like other sports besides just tennis. The significance is that the fact that she did mention these things gives me an opportunity next time I see her to dig deeper, ask more questions, and start from something that I already know is important to her.

When talking with my grandmother last night I explained a little bit about my conversation with you and told her that based on knowing her my whole life I can tell one of the most important things in her life is the relationship she had with her mother. Almost every time I talk to my grandma she relates something I say to "when my mother was alive..." Believe it or not she actually started crying on the phone and told me about how one of the reasons she is so comfortable talking to me about her mom is that I remind her so much of her (my great grandmother). She started telling me all of the things that make me like her - her mannerisms, her chin, her gentleness, her laugh. Without meaning to I awakened a conversation with my Grandma that she often sprinkles into our talks but gave her the opportunity to really expose her memories and open up to me.

I am looking forward to adopting this method of listening - I am sure it will be a conscious effort at first but I hope at some point I develop the ability to be aware of not only the words people are telling me but also the significance of them choosing those particular words.