Either or?

In a job interview a few weeks ago, I was posed with a question that has stayed with me ever since:

"Do you find comfort in being close to home ...or are you eager to get out and explore the world?"

Since it was an interview, I felt I had to answer one way or another. So I chose the latter.

But I'm not sure how I can claim to be an eager explorer when I have just moved "home" to Richmond, where I am surrounded by friends and family.

True...I did spend four years away at college and three years living in DC, but throughout that time -- except for the semester I spent in Paris -- I was never more than five hours away from the comforts of home.

Yet there is no question in my mind that the most rewarding and enriching moments of my adult life have come from my ventures into the wider world. As I have explored new places and cultures, I have made friends and memories that now define me.

It seems each time I venture out of my comfort zone, I encounter someone or something that illuminates a new layer within the prism of my soul. Afterward, everything I experience filters through that new layer and refracts into thoughts and perspectives I would not otherwise have had.

I am not sure who I would be today if I had never gotten out and explored the world. But I also don't know who I would be today if I did not have a home base to return to after each adventure.
My loyalty to home and family defines me just as much as my fascination with the world beyond.

In the interview, I had to choose one or the other...but in real life I refuse to do so.

And if that means my life becomes a quest to balance these two essential drives, then so be it.

Because I simply can't relinquish either side of myself.

How far have we come?

I watched an excellent but emotionally disturbing film last night.

It was "Changeling"-- yet another of Clint Eastwood's thought -provoking directorial masterpieces.

Conspiracy, corruption and discrimination are some of the sociopolitical issues raised in the film, which is based on a series of events that took place in Los Angeles in the late 1920s .

"Changeling" exposes some alarming real-life examples of conspiring officials and corrupt police departments. But, to me, the most disturbing illustration was that of the L.A. County Hospital Psychiatric Ward.

It wasn't that I was distressed by the images of life inside an insane asylum. (I have seen "Girl Interrupted" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," after all.)

No...what I found most upsetting was the patients' sense of helplessness--and the doctors' refusal to listen to them.

The doctors and nurses assumed everything the women said or did to be evidence of their "insanity." The harder a patient tried to act normal, the crazier she seemed.

I was nauseated at the idea that, as soon as a woman is diagnosed as mentally ill, she essentially loses the ability to defend herself.

Fortunately, I know that over the past 80 years society has made significant progress in its approach to mental illness.

Today, doctors are better equipped to diagnose and treat anxiety, depression and mood disorders with counseling and medication; insurance companies are finally required to treat mental ailments the same way they treat physical ailments; and it seems the stigma attached to mental illness is gradually beginning to fade.

Taking all of this into consideration as I re-hashed the psych ward scenes in "Changeling," I convinced myself that patients in modern psychiatric wards are treated more humanely than those portrayed in the movie.

But this morning, NPR informed me that caretakers at a home for mentally retarded citizens were recently arrested for organizing after-hours "fight clubs" pitting disabled residents against each other.

So now I wonder...

If a group of caretakers can so easily abuse the mentally disabled, why should I think they couldn't do the same to the mentally ill?

Float On

Float On

A few weeks ago, I opened a copy of Richmond's Skirt magazine and promptly devoured three personal essays I found inside: Stacy Appel's "Undercurrents," Christine Mason Miller's "Time Out" and Phyllis Theroux's "Dream Time."

The theme and messages of this month's issue could not have come at a better time for me.

As I transition out of a job I held for three years and attempt to find my way along a new path of my own making, I have found myself feeling overwhelmed and anxious at the thought that I am in control of my own future.

What if I make the wrong decision and miss out on a golden opportunity? What if I take a step in one direction and then, a few years later, wish I had gone a different route?

The words of wisdom in these essays eased my anxieties and reassured me that I am in the right place for me right now.

I am nourished by the idea that sometimes the wisest choice we can make is to relinquish control and let the invisible currents of life "carry us forward with intelligence we can't quite perceive."

Open your mind and add spice to your life

I was midway through a semester abroad program, studying French and living with a family in Paris when the United States declared war on Iraq.

“C’est la guerre,” my host father matter-of-factly proclaimed as we sat down to dinner one March evening.

Once it became clear that France would not back the U.S. in its pursuit of war with Iraq, I received phone calls and emails from friends in the states :

“Is it weird to be in France right now? Are the people rude or hostile to you? Do the French hate Americans now? Do you feel unsafe?”

Not at all.

As opposed to Americans, who had boycotted the sale of French wine and taken to calling French fries “freedom fries,” my French colleagues were able to make a clear distinction.

"We are against the war, but we are not against Americans," they said.

Despite my inherent association with President Bush and the war, I never encountered the least bit of enmity or aggression from the French community.

I hope that a French student studying in the states at that time would be able to say the same.

Living abroad, especially during such a controversial moment in history, opened my mind to the importance of cross-cultural awareness and drew my attention to the media’s considerable influence over public perception.

This awareness has encouraged me to seek out friends with backgrounds different from my own and to consider the variety of perspectives surrounding each political, social or cultural issue.

They say variety is the spice of life. If so, I believe we owe it to society and to ourselves to keep our spice racks fully stocked.