Читать книгу My Maasai Life - Robin Wiszowaty - Страница 7

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My Ordinary Life

I grew up in the eighties in the safe and ordinary world of Schaumburg, Illinois, a large suburb forty kilometres northwest of Chicago. Schaumburg was proud of its reputation as the home of the sprawling Woodfield Mall—“America’s Third Largest”—the state’s number one tourist attraction and the anchor of the community’s economy. Schaumburg mainly white middle-class residents raised their families in quintessential American neighbourhoods, the kind where kids gathered on lawns for endless games of kickball and shooting hoops while parents watched from lawn chairs, or traded gossip over potluck dinners. In our neighbourhood, every summer the entire community would rally around a gigantic block party, with games, food and an annual talent show; when I was nine, I proudly shouldered the responsibility for finding raffle prize sponsorships and then wowed the crowd with a hula dance to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.”

I am the middle child in my suburban family. My older sister, Erin, and my younger brother, Adam, felt sometimes close, sometimes far away when we would battle through the shifting, always-complex power dynamic among us. As the eldest, Erin felt a responsibility to look out for Adam, even while I picked on him incessantly. His natural kindness made him vulnerable to my sneaky tactics, and I often managed to get him to take the fall for my own mischief. With Erin, I liked to maliciously flaunt my beloved Orange Tic Tacs and sour green apple Laffy Taffys and work up her jealousy—early on she had been diagnosed with juvenile onset diabetes and had to avoid sugar. Though our parents strove to treat each child equally, I felt I would never be as sociable and focused as Erin or as kind and creative as Adam. Despite our conflicts, in the end we bonded over our common appreciations: oldies radio, Pac-Man, lavishing endless affection on our dog Fluffy—the typical stuff of American teens.

At ten years old, my personal world-view was just starting to take shape.

Yet from an early age, I was unsatisfied with my ordinary life. I just knew there had to be something more exciting and significant than this transparent world. I could never find my niche or any comfortable sense of self. Looking around, all I saw were people doing only just enough to get through their lives. Household conversations focused on whether to buy Frosted Flakes or Cap’n Crunch, who won Monday Night Football, upcoming sales at clothing stores. My friends occupied their time either working toward promising futures—college, careers, marriage—or immersed in the escapism of fashion, rumours and Holly wood.

But wasn’t there more to life than this? Why did this simple, day-to-day life seem to satisfy most people, but not me? I couldn’t explain what I wanted instead or what kind of person I really wanted to become. I just knew it wasn’t what I already had.

An inner anger that I could barely understand, let alone express, gradually began to build inside me. A fire of dissatisfaction burned within, a fire that lashed out in anger, against my parents, against my brother and sister. It was a fire that would only build and build, until I did something to quiet it. I could not be contained by high school’s narrow hallways, my suburban streets, my ordinary life.

Was I the only one who felt this way? Questioning things aloud and refusing to conform within my social circle would only find me maligned as a “rebel,” so I buried myself in constant activity, fighting to always push harder to wring experience from every moment. Starting in seventh grade, I became enamoured with singing in the choir and performing in musical theatre, and I joined every team or club I could. Tennis lessons. Drama class. Student congress. Swim team. Track and field. Softball. Model un. A summer job lifeguarding at Schaumburg Park District. I filled every spare moment between practices or competitions by keeping a hectic social calendar with friends and my boyfriend—movies, restaurants, baking.

For most people, it seemed better to take the easy way every time.

And for the time being, so did I, grinning and bearing it, going with the flow, even as my anger simmered.

But at the time I felt alone and I directed my dissatisfaction and anger at those most accessible: my family.

My father Tony comes from a Polish Catholic background. His grandparents, my great-grandparents, met onboard an ocean liner while crossing the Atlantic, arriving at New York’s Ellis Island port in 1906 and marrying shortly thereafter. They spoke next to no English and had little money and, as the Great Depression loomed, they had to take any odd jobs they could find to support a burgeoning family of seven children. A middle child amid this brood, my grandfather eventually moved to the Midwest, founded a printing business that would support the family he raised there, but only with hard work, long hours and thrifty spending. My grandfather also believed passionately in the value of education and took pride in the fact that his daughters would be the first women in his family line to attend university.

But my dad, his only son, faced a number of challenges. At school a teacher told his parents that he was slow and that his parents should lower any expectations they had for his success. In fact, this teacher’s prediction of failure did exactly the opposite, only motivating my father to work harder and dream bigger.

After a stint in the Marine Corps Reserve, Dad moved to a rough area of Chicago and into a tiny second-floor apartment facing a garbage-strewn back alley. The hallways stank of neighbours’ cooking and the galley kitchen was so small he had to walk through sideways. The bathtub was a rusted wreck and, with no money, he was forced to pinch his cutlery one piece at a time from a nearby diner.

My dad worked an entry-level management at a bank while studying evenings to eventually earn a master’s degree in education administration from Northwestern Illinois University, even serving as class president. Public speaking was his forte, and to this day he proudly recalls the best speech he ever delivered, addressing the student body on the occasion of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. People in the audience wept openly as his words implored the power of unity, community and hope against all odds.

In the crowd for that speech was a young woman named Bonnie Rovin. She listened to his words and was profoundly inspired. I’m going to marry that man someday, she told herself.

My mother’s upbringing couldn’t have been more different from my father’s. Coming from a wealthy Jewish family, she grew up on the richer side of Chicago. Hers was a life of country clubs, heated pools and fancy dresses. Hers was a life of comfort and ease until she was eighteen, when her father—the grandfather I would never meet—died suddenly of a heart attack. Distraught, she began to question her priorities, and she was actually in the process of dropping out of university when my father’s speech that day stirred her interests. She immediately changed her class schedule in hopes of arranging a meeting with him and, she hoped, more.

Her attempts to win Tony over were successful and, despite their cultural and religious differences, they were married in 1971. Several years of financial struggles and hard work followed, both of them working low-paying administrative jobs at the university while fighting to make ends meet. Despite the odds, they managed to purchase a modest townhouse and, later, the house in Schaumburg where I grew up.

Erin was born in June 1979. Nineteen months later, on January 20, 1981—also Mom’s thirty-first birthday—I was born. Almost three years later, Adam arrived. Other than early concerns with the discovery of Erin’s diabetes, we were a normal, healthy family. Dad tried several careers, from working at universities to network marketing firms to real estate brokerages; Mom stayed at home with us kids. Dad made sure we kept a close relationship with our entire extended family of aunts, uncles and grandparents, with regular reunions bringing us all together.

Having clawed his way up to the comfort of a middle-class lifestyle, Dad was determined for his kids to grow up with the same dedicated work ethic. “We Wiszowatys,” he insisted, “are leaders, not followers!” We were expected to always excel, particularly in academics. There were no Cs—I never received a grade below a B until eighth grade, when my distressed mother called my teacher demanding an explanation and afterward checked in weekly to track my achievements.

Dad was always fiercely determined to make his children feel powerful and confident. From an early age Adam, Erin and I fell asleep every night wearing headphones so we could listen to the motivational tapes he’d selected. These tapes played talks called “No More Excuses! Get It Done Today!” or “Get It Done and Still Have Fun!” We’d often return home from school to find self-help books on the kitchen table with a note: Dear Erin, Robin and Adam, Read Chapter Three, we’ll be discussing it at dinner tonight.

Every morning before we headed off to school, we would recite my dad’s scripted pep talks.

“Can you win?” he’d ask.

“I can win!” I’d say in return.

“Why?”

“Why?” I’d echo, following the script. “I’ll tell you why! Because I have faith, courage and enthusiasm!”

We would recite these affirmations endlessly, repeating the lines ten times a day: “I am fearless! I am determined! I am powerful! I am unstoppable!”

As I got older, I began to object to performing these routines and told Dad I thought they were ridiculous. My mother seemed to take my objections in stride, always remaining mellow, even when my father was particularly motivated and pumped up. I could see his enthusiasm was only out of love, but I still ridiculed him and refused to be told what to do, and I reacted in outbursts that grew increasingly hostile.

One night when I was fourteen, our family had just returned from a dinner out, and the moment we got home my sister had taken over the family’s only computer. I was irritated because I also wanted to use it, yet she refused. Suddenly, I was flaming with anger.

The next thing I remember is totally losing my train of thought. I heard myself screaming an incomprehensible spew of nonsense, something garbled like “hate everyone . . . computer . . . television . . .” Then, suddenly snapping out of it and realizing how crazy I sounded, I grabbed my jacket and stormed out into the winter night.

I headed along the wooded path where I usually walked Fluffy, trying to understand what had just occurred. What’s happening to me? Why did I do that? I didn’t even notice my dad behind me until he’d caught up and tugged gently at my arm.

As I fumed, he lectured me, saying he’d seen symptoms in me that he had himself experienced when younger: a feeling of helpless frustration, of not knowing how to control angry feelings.

“Sometimes you feel blank,” he said. “You don’t think straight, because you’re in such a fury.”

He was right. But I didn’t want to admit it; I’d convinced myself I hated him and the rest of my family. He said he and Mom had discussed entering me in anger management counselling.

“No!” I refused. “I don’t need that.”

But as time went on, my anger persisted. I argued about anything and with anyone. I became unbearable to live with but no one in my family made any changes to quell my anger. Dad still treated me as an ignorant child who couldn’t form her own opinions, and he forced his values of money and material success with disapproving looks and critical comments after every word I spoke. Eventually, rather than lashing out, I retreated further and further, building a wall of silence between us. Why keep setting myself up for the constant disapproval?

My mom hoped to be the family’s peacemaker. Following one of the regular blowouts between Dad and me, I overheard her on the phone with my grandmother, confessing that one of her biggest disappointments in life was her inability to maintain a proper, loving relationship with me. Naturally, I felt terribly guilty, but in my stubborn pride I could never allow myself to bend to her wishes.

To make it worse, in comparison Erin and Adam glided by, untroubled by my father’s expectations to excel, to be upbeat and outgoing, to “Go get ’em! ” Erin and Adam had no problem doing that. But I seemed doomed to always be the black sheep.

My family also struggled to observe my mother’s Jewish heritage. We were never particularly devout—unless counting our weekly Hebrew school visits, when, truthfully, we were more excited for the trip afterward to Burger King for Chicken Tenders (always the six-piece pack, until they expanded it to nine, which Mom found excessive).

I recall in my junior year we were celebrating Yom Kippur, the Jewish high holiday. Traditionally, Yom Kippur means an occasion of atoning and repenting for one’s sins. In our family’s version, we gathered at Schaumburg’s Volkening Lake to sit around a picnic table, taking turns pledging our goals for the coming year. In my rebellious manner, I thought it was all tedious. I put on my typical sour attitude, thinking, This is dumb. What a waste of time. When Mom tearfully said her biggest goal for the year was to work on her relationship with me, I felt horrible. Of all the goals she could focus on in life, she focused on . . . me? When I barely gave her the time of day, a brief glance, let alone a smile or kind word? Yet in my defiance I could never allow myself to cry in front of her, or assure her doubts.

I hoped that going away to college would be my big breakthrough. I broke up with my boyfriend, looking to make all new friends and sever all ties. I refused to bring petty distractions from high school along with me to college. I’d be far enough away from my parents that I wouldn’t have to do anything they said. I wouldn’t have to answer to anybody.

Arriving at the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois in fall 1999, the reality wasn’t quite as I expected. Majoring in speech communications, I enjoyed my classes and quickly made friends. But the opportunities I’d imagined, the chances for freedom and to find an exciting new path didn’t come as readily as I’d hoped. Student life was fairly mundane: classes, studying, eating pizza and watching movies with my dorm-mates, overeating at the residence’s all-you-can-eat buffet to the point that I gained nearly thirty pounds. It was actually kind of a letdown.

One day I stopped to read one of the many flyers I’d seen around promoting something called Birthright Israel. The purpose of this international organization is to inspire young people to explore their Jewish heritage. They provide anyone born Jewish the experience of visiting their faith’s spiritual home, all expenses paid, to help them to learn about their cultural history.

Birthright Israel seemed a blessing: an easy, low-risk way to break out of conventional expectations and get far away. Spots for their trips were very competitive, so I signed up without a second thought that I might actually be selected. Truthfully, I felt I barely qualified because of my family’s relatively relaxed approach to our faith.

As it turns out, given recent events—I applied shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and during a peak in the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict—travelling internationally was widely seen as reckless, even dangerous, so very few people had signed up. To my surprise, I would be on my way to Israel that December.

I immediately called home. I hadn’t spoken to my parents in a while, so I was eager to tell them about my plan. When my mom answered, I was prepared to gloat.

“Oh, Robin!”

I could picture her in her bedroom, idly watching television before nodding off to sleep. She called to my father. “Tony, Robin’s on the phone!”

I heard him pick up the kitchen extension.

“Robin!”

I readied myself. “Guess what I’m doing over Christmas vacation?”

My mother sounded overjoyed. “You’re coming home? Oh, Tony, she’s coming home!”

“Ma, stop,” I said, instantly annoyed. “I’m going to Israel.”

I could almost hear their jaws dropping. They were of course thinking of terrorists and suicide bombers, the violence reported in the news every day. To them, this trip seemed insane.

They didn’t really know what to say, and the conversation ended abruptly. I learned that in the following days they’d discussed my proposed trip with various family members. My aunts and uncles, all the family, all told them, “She is your daughter. She is your responsibility. If you need to tie her down to a chair, that’s what you need to do. But you can not let her go.”

But by then my parents were learning they couldn’t tell me what to do. So they did the best thing they could. They both individually came to me on campus to privately discuss my plans. Why was I going so far away? Why couldn’t I just come home? Why didn’t we use this time to work on our family?

They asked with such sincerity, such intensity, I thought for the first time I could speak the truth and air all my feelings. But the truth was I didn’t know why I wanted to go so badly. So I brushed off their concerns, still concerned with nothing other than my need to break free.

I promised my parents I would search my soul about exactly why I’d signed up for the Israel trip. So one gloomy evening, I showed up early to one of the nightly practices of the residence’s Ultimate Frisbee team I had joined in my second year of university. With no one around, I sat under an awning against the cold stone of our dorm building, curled up with pen and paper in hand.

I had journalled since high school, but now something stirred inside me, yearning to be articulated. I felt on the verge of understanding what it was, but it was so big, just a jumbled mush, tied up inside me. Slowly I felt the knots loosening.

I started thinking, why? Why did I want to go? What would this trip mean within the larger picture of my life?

Just as I felt words approaching, my pen hovering above the page, the dorm hall’s doors flung open and my Frisbee friends burst onto the field.

“Robin!” they called, “Let’s go!”

One of them threw the disk long and the others chased it upfield. I instinctively moved to follow, then paused. Instead, I told them I’d catch up later.

As a soft rain began to fall, my pen raced across the page. I’d wanted to express these feelings for years, to scream them out, but never knew the words to use.

I feel tied to this life. Bound by decisions I never made, decided by people I have never met. Greeted with an outcome, beginning with an end, I am struggling to free myself of an upbringing I did not choose ...

I don’t remember if I went back to practice that day, but I do remember filling most of that page, then returning to my room in Allen Hall to type it out into my laptop. By putting my feelings into words, I knew I was closer to some sort of conclusion. I needed to go as far as possible, to do as much as I could. And, for better or for worse, the first step would be this trip to Israel.

Eventually, my parents gave me their blessings for the trip. Not that I was waiting for their approval, but I was glad to receive it nonetheless.

It was a fascinating two weeks. We visited the Western Wall on New Year’s Eve at midnight and scaled Mount Masada at sunrise. We explored the old and new cities, repelled cliffs in the Negev Desert and swam in the Dead Sea. I was humbled by a visit to the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem and later had the chance to meet both Israeli and Palestinian peers for long discussions of the region’s longstanding cultural conflicts.

I was deeply moved by how attached these people felt to their spiritual lives. And while it didn’t encourage me to pack up and move to Israel to become a devout Jew, it did remind me how fiercely I longed to break out of this Western mindset and find something else. But what that something was precisely, I still didn’t know for sure.

When my parents picked me up at the airport upon my return, I could tell what they were thinking: Phew! That’s out of her system! Now we’re done with that.

Unfortunately for them, relief didn’t last long. A few days later, I sat them at the kitchen table and told them exactly what they were most dreading: Israel was just Step One. I didn’t want to just visit Israel, or any other western country, for only ten days. I needed to find a place far away and for an extended length of time. A space where I couldn’t rely on technology or other people, customs, norms, language—somewhere far from my current reality.

“If this first trip was a big deal for you,” I told them, “then get ready, because this is just a warm-up for what I’m really going to do with my life.”

I initially considered three possible destinations: South America, Asia and rural Africa. As a university student, I figured the best route would be to study abroad for the upcoming semester, and I was pleased to find there were programs available in each of these places. I quickly ruled out South America, as all the programs I found required previous fluency in Spanish. I considered several possibilities in Asia, but they required the desire to learn an Asian language. Then I found several programs in which one could study in Africa with only English or French. Within English-speaking Africa, Kenya struck me as the most appealing. It was that simple.

Well, almost. In each of the programs I explored, participants would be surrounded by English students or placed in a cosmopolitan city—the very situations I hoped to avoid. I eventually discovered a program offered through the University of Minnesota that connected students with a contact in Kenya, who would then provide a link to a host community in a rural region. I’d be required to do a great deal of months-long groundwork at the University of Illinois, then develop a research topic and conduct field studies while in Kenya. I also had to convince the dean and college at my current university, the University of Illinois, that my Kenyan excursion would be worth an equivalent year’s credit and allow me to complete my degree. Originally it seemed my professors would never agree to the idea, and I had to press hard for weeks to convince them. But to my relief, they eventually agreed.

The other issue was money. This trip was going to be expensive. Fortunately, I’d been working part-time jobs since I was fifteen: secretarial work, lifeguarding, camp counselling. All along I’d set aside eighty percent of every paycheque, always knowing that a time would come when I’d need funds for this eventual something. My friends threw away their allowances and earnings on movie tickets or dinner at McDonald’s. Those things meant nothing to me. I had bigger things in mind.

So when this trip came up, I was able to cover my plane ticket, health insurance and most other costs. This was actually happening!

I knew nothing about Kenya. When I pictured Africa, all I imagined were the stereotypical National Geographic images of wild animals, rural huts, underfed children with flies crawling across their wan faces. I looked at photographs of the capital city of Nairobi, which was unlike anything I’d seen: crowded streets, drab buildings, certainly not a white face in sight. Those photographs only reinforced to me that I had no idea what to expect. I wouldn’t know how to say “hello,” “goodbye,” “thank you,” anything. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was going far, far away. That was enough for me.

I might have asked myself once or twice, What will it be like, to go away, to not see any of my friends or family, for a whole year? But I never entertained such thoughts for long. When people asked how I would manage, I had my automatic answer: “It’s going to be fun! It’s going to be an adventure!” Adam and Erin seemed fed up with my incessant whining and complaining, so they clearly didn’t take my ambitions very seriously. Friends told me I was foolish for even considering doing this. But I would just smile and nod while inside I was fuming, thinking, As if you have any idea! You would never do what I’m about to do!

The days leading up to my departure were full of excited preparation. Mom and I talked in heartfelt conversations, holding hands and discussing how was it going to be while I was away. Through tears she told me how much she was going to miss me and that she was scared to death that I’d get sick, even die. For his part Dad said he was worried I’d get caught up in political turmoil or even choose to never return home.

Yet when my parents asked me what my fears might be, I’d vehemently declare, “Nothing!” I denied myself the opportunity to think about what could go wrong. This, I was convinced, was everything to which my entire life was leading, my big, once-in-a-lifetime chance to show everybody I was more than just some angry, rebellious kid. This was my time to do something more daring than they ever would, and I would excel and thrive in it. In your face! I thought viciously. I had no idea what awaited me and I didn’t care. I didn’t even think twice about it.

But I did feel guilty, knowing how hard it would for everyone I was leaving behind. Thinking ahead, I collected birthday and holiday gifts for my entire family for the coming year, entrusting them to my grandma to deliver at the appropriate times. I hid small notes throughout the house so they’d be found at given times. For example, I knew Dad only read his Bible a couple of times a year, so I slipped a special note in there for him to discover later. I hid Christmas cards for everyone with the stash of decorations kept upstairs. I purchased cards from a florist and gave them to one of my mother’s co-workers, arranging for them to be delivered with fresh flowers to Mom’s office at the end of every month.

I had my friends go through my clothes and pick out what they wanted, then donated the rest to Goodwill. I squished everything I’d need into one backpack, figuring I’d buy clothes when I got there. I gave away my computer and my printer and whittled down my contact list to only those addresses I really wanted to keep. The plan was to rid myself of all superfluous things and people. I had only a few bare essentials—and my mission. That was enough.

I tried to set up these systems so that those I left behind would be okay, but also for selfish reasons—with these small reassurances, I could totally break all ties and wouldn’t have to worry about anyone or anything while I was off on my adventure. In my mind, I was done with this place.

Before I knew it, it was time to leave for Kenya.

My flight was in the afternoon, so the last morning I slept in, unconcerned and in no rush for anything. A knock came at my bedroom door, and my father entered. He joined me on the bed, which he never had done before.

“Robin,” he said, “if for whatever reason, you don’t come back, if you’re in some tribal conflict, or you catch some horrible disease . . . just know we love you, we’ve always loved you and we always will.”

He was choked up, and his fears were genuine, but I was only embarrassed. I had seen my father cry only once before, at my grandfather’s funeral. I wanted to properly honour what he was doing, reaching out this way, but I just couldn’t. It was too much. I couldn’t be seen as weak now, just when I was leaving. I needed to feel strong.

“Okay, Dad,” I said. “Thanks.” I didn’t want to make a big deal of my departure, but at the same time travelling overseas was the hugest, most dramatic thing that had ever happened to me. At the airport, my dad hugged me and cried again. Then it was my mom’s turn. She hugged me and also cried, just as I knew she would. Through her tears, she whispered in my ear.

“I want to leave you with some words of wisdom, but I don’t have anything to tell you that you don’t already know,” she said. “You’re ready for this. Go do it. Just call us when you get there.”

Saying my last goodbyes, I picked up my bag and headed for the security gate. But before I’d made it through, I froze. I turned and ran back. For the first time in years, I shed tears in front of my parents. At that moment I felt such a sudden, powerful outburst of emotion. Yet despite my tears, I did my best to reassure them I was okay. They said they understood, and we held each other, sobbing together.

Then I headed off, this time for real. But as I was leaving, I realized I wasn’t sure if I had my passport. Do I need that? I wondered. You need a passport to go to another country, don’t you? I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d checked it with my baggage or still had it on me. There, in the middle of O’Hare airport and in sight of my puzzled parents, I dropped to my knees and tore through my overstuffed carry-on bag.

Luckily, my passport was there. I waved it to my parents on the other side of the gate and called out to them: “It’s okay, ’bye!”

Then I stuffed the passport in my pocket and hurried to catch my flight.