Search Results

< Back Elaine's Story 00:00 / 06:18 I'm gonna be 80 this year. I always say God willing, because who knows? And when I was younger, I just assumed I would just keep getting older. So, when all those life experiences happen, I had to say to myself, what does that mean? You know? And my middle sister and I and my oldest sister used to talk about, well, my mother died young. I wonder who will be next. And then when Barbara died, it was like, okay. I guess I'm off the hook. And then, oh my goodness, I got older and older, and I made 47, and I made 49, and I made 51. And it dawned on me that I really didn't have a road map for assuming I would age because nobody in my family had, especially the women. And so, as I began to get a little bit older and not take it for granted, but also say, okay. I am alive, and I want to make the most of it. I looked around for what I call mentors or role models. And I have about 4 of them that I want to talk to about today, and I'll just jump off with the first one. I'm married at 21, and my husband was 31. And I was lucky enough to have a fantastic mother-in-law. Her name was Doris. And Doris was a very lively, fun, very caring human being, and great wonderful mother-in-law and grandmother. And one of the things that I learned from her as I watched her age is how to approach getting old. And several things I learned from her was, 1, she said you need to constantly make friends all the time and make new friends because people go away, people die, and you always sort of want to replenish. So, you know, doing this project is another way to replenish friends and people who are younger because, hopefully, they'll be around for a while. And also, after her husband, my father-in-law passed away, I watched what she did with her life. And what I observed was she really decided to live life and to sort of figure out how to be a widow and how to enjoy life. And so, she had almost 20 years of learning how to live independently and was an amazing role model. My next one is a woman named Mary Merriam, who is a woman I met through a quilting group. They were doing traditional old fashioned hand quilting. What I what I saw with her is, first of all, she was incredibly kind, and so that's a wonderful thing to see in people. And having read the book on loneliness, he talks about the impute importance of community. And joining her group, it was a group of about a dozen women, and it was met on a morning, Tuesday morning in the city in the town hall in Conway. And we just sat around and did hand quilting, which is very quiet, very peaceful. And, she was very encouraging, and we probably met for almost 10 years before the book broke up. But what I learned from Mary was, she took care of her husband. He had a stroke, and she was so loving and so kind and made a point of still getting to the quilt group. But she had to balance that new role that she had. And so, watching that experience was very moving. And then the next person within the group was the 99 year old woman, and her name was Dot. And Dot was another wonderful, wonderful example of how to age. And she was a skinny little thing, I think maybe a little bit taller than me, but very slight. And she was carrying this big queen-size quilt. And I went to the door to help her open the door, and I said, let me carry that for you. And her response was, don't baby me. So, I thought that was absolutely wonderful. And, again, that spirit, that feistiness that says, nobody's gonna just I'm not a shriveled up little old lady. She used to talk about what a blessed life she lived. And at some point, I talked to Mary about her, and it turned out her father died in his fifties. Her own husband had died roughly around the same age, and she still had the courage to say, I'm blessed. And then the last person, her name is Ruth. And Ruth lived to 94, just recently passed away. And I knew her through the Mount Holyoke community. But the thing that Ruth taught me was as she aged, she had a lot of problems, health problems, and would be in and out of the hospital. And last year, when she came home, they had her on oxygen, and she had this long tube that went on forever. And when I visited her, she was so feisty. She's like, wow. I'm not gonna carry this damn thing around forever. And she said, I am gonna get rid of this and get off of oxygen and be done with this. And she actually did. And I think, you know, some people might have just resigned themselves, sat in a chair, and say, oh, poor me, and just kind of let fade out. There was nothing that was gonna fade out on her. I mean, at 94, she did eventually die, but spirit, her fight, her willingness to say, alright. That's what's happening today, but that's not gonna necessarily be what's happening tomorrow. So, I think that I feel so fortunate to have learned from all of these four examples that I'm giving you, and there's plenty more I could do on. But how to approach life, not make certain assumptions, not stereotype yourself into certain behavior Previous Next

< Back McKenna's Story McKenna describes her love of gymnastics in this story. The lessons it taught her and the people she met along the way are invaluable to her, and she will carry these lessons with her throughout the rest of her life. 00:00 / 03:21 McKenna: The reason that my mother put myself and my two younger siblings in gymnastics, um, was because my younger brother, who is three years younger than me, he always used to stand on his head in his car seat, um, like, as my mom would buckle everybody in. My siblings are twins, so getting everybody in the car was an ordeal because she didn't have enough hands to possibly buckle everyone in at once. And my brother would always slip on to his head in his booster seat and hold himself up there, and kind of swing around. And there were a couple close calls of him, you know, making some choices that maybe weren’t the safest for him. My mom put us into gymnastics, because she thought, you know, that this would be a safe place for them to learn how to be monkeys and not get hurt. Uh, and maybe not to put themselves in a headstand in the car seat. My brother, after - he did gymnastics only for a few years with us in the very beginning, and he quickly decided that that wasn't for him. And my mom for the most part was our chauffeur, here, there, and everywhere for gymnastics, um, although they both always made a point - sometimes, my sister and I had different meets, and we’d be in different places, so they would have to separate out for those meets. I think that, as I got older, a lot of my friends stopped doing it competitively, so I was - at one point I was like the oldest girl in the gym, other than one other girl who is a year younger than me by, like, a landslide. And, so. At that point in time - I don't know. I felt a little disconnected from my peers in that moment, but. Gymnastics is very physically demanding and, I mean, I dislocated my hip when I was thirteen and I tore some tendons in my ankle at 17. And there were days that I - there were 100% days where I was like, “Why am I doing this? Why am I here? I could be with my friends, I could be doing this,” whatever that could be might have been. “Why am I here?” and I think the life lesson from pushing through those days, and looking back on it now, the character I have for that, and the grit that I learned to say, “Okay, I made this commitment.” Some of my very greatest life lessons-and I constantly reflect back on things I learned from doing gymnastics-as like, you know, okay, back up and take a breather and we approach the situation as like, life skills as opposed to just physical sports skills. I learned a lot from gymnastics in the physical sense but most in the, like emotional and mental well-being and awareness sense. That I, I think I was ready to part ways. I felt like I had, I had learned what I could as a person. And sure, I could have kept going and learned new skills, and sure, I could have, if I really wanted to, have gone further with it but I just, I came to a point that I knew my body was not gonna be able to keep going. But, gymnastics was the first place that had an understanding that family could be more than just blood related. You come to college and you kind of have your home away from home or your home in a person more so than a place kind of thing and I learned that from gymnastics. Previous Next

< Back Juli's Story Juli speaks with Jacqueline about her time at summer camp as a kid. At this camp, Juli met someone who didn’t fit in. But Juli learned how a little kindness could go a long way. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 02:06 Yeah I think I dont know how old I was maybe 10 years old and it was ya know mostly I went to summer camp ya know girl scout camps but it was a camp at the end of camp um they always had this big camp fire at the end of the week at camp and everyone would come and they gave an award it was like a good citizen award to the person who best exemplified the values of ya know camping and girl scouting and I got the award It shocked me cause I didnt feel like I distinguished myself in anyway at that point i didnt really excel as a student when was young it wasnt until i got older but um and I relaized and I had to think about it for a few minutes why did they give me this and i think it was because there was a girl who was assigned to my tent that year and I always went by myself I didnt know other campers and it wa a tent with 4 cots one of th egirsl was um she was clearly from a poor family probably there on a grant and um she was very awkward very awkward physically and socially and ya know just had a hard time fitting in ya know and that was clear to me and the other 2 girls in our tent wanted absolutely nothing to do with her and so I always made sure ya know when we go out for walks in the woods wed have to have a buddy and i would ask her to be my buddy and I made sure she wasnt sitting alone um at meal times um ya know I just tried to be kind with her even though i didnt really connect with her cause she wasn't easy to engage with but I just tried to be kind and I think thats why I got the award and it was an important lesson to me ya know the value of kindness Previous Next

Annabel's Story Annabel, who recently uprooted her life in North Carolina and moved to Northampton, MA, discusses how she ended up living in the city and her close familial relationships that led her there. Scroll to Listen Annabel's Story 00:00 / 03:21 Stephanie: Speaking of Northampton, how did you even end up here? Like, how did you know this town? Because it is so small. Annabel: It is so small. I had been visiting here for a number of years because my daughter, who is a writer, and her husband is a publisher, they were living in Northampton and were - and Amherst and Northampton both have a huge community of writers. I ended up visiting frequently, and then 12 years ago, almost 13 years ago, they had a child who was born four months early. And she only weighed a pound and a half, and ended up having a lot of medical crises. She had a feeding tube and a trach. Stephanie: Oh, my God… Annabel: And, ended up spending four hundred and [sic] days in three different hospitals. Thank God she was in Massachusetts because she had some fabulous care here. Stephanie: Yeah. Annabel: She is doing really really well now. Um, and if you didn’t know, if you didn’t see the scar in her neck you wouldn’t know she had a trach. And, ironically, as a two year old, I had a trach… Stephanie: Oh… Annabel: Because of a really bad case of bronchial pneumonia, and ended up with a trach. So, we may be the only grandmother team… Stephanie: Yeah, that has… Annabel: that have the trach scars. Anyway, so I came up here a great deal while she was in the hospital - or, those 3 hospitals. And finally, I just thought, “I want to move there. I want to be near her,” so that was the reason I ended up here. And I’m so glad. I’m almost 75, and if you had told me I would make friends as good as any friends I’ve ever had I would not have believed it. So, I count my blessings that I ended up here. Stephanie: Yeah, that sounds really, that everything worked out, basically. Annabel: It did. It really did. Stephanie: Yeah. And was it hard making friends here? Annabel: I think at first, because I didn’t think that I could ever make friends like the ones I left behind, particularly back in North Carolina, I wasn’t reaching out. But finally, my daughter is best friends with another writer, whose mother moved here from California, and both of them kept saying “You’ll love each other if you get together!” and we instantly did. And then, I joined a church at the same time as another friend and we’ve become best friends. So I'm just amazed. I did not expect - I knew I would be happy here because of my daughter’s family. And there’s another family, they’re very close to me and I love them. I didn’t think I’d have peers as friends, but I do, and I’m so glad. Yeah.

Candace's Story Candace shares what it means for her to live her best self and how she continues to learn through her experiences. Scroll to Listen Candace's Story 00:00 / 05:17 Candace: I like my own company. And I guess that was something of a surprise. I've tended my whole life to be very social. And all of a sudden, because I couldn't be, I started to do maybe more internal work, deeper dives internally. Being alone did not necessarily feel lonely to me. Candace: I'm 77. So with, I certainly hope, I've learned over that many years, a bunch of stuff. And, trying to get to the place where it's one thing or one more most important thing, or one thing that is a basket for everything else, right. And I think what it comes down to for me, is that everything counts. And the older I get, the more I see it. It's not that you have to always make brilliant choices, you can't, you know, and in fact, I think our failures may be certainly as important, maybe even more important than our successes. The choice part comes about, when you see how you deal with events in your life, or how you deal with what comes at you, or how, what you use to make choices, or even things like who you choose to be your friends, or who whose shoulders do you choose to stand on, you know, I mean, we can't choose our family. And we certainly all stand on their shoulders at some point. But, but we do choose like, occupations and, and mentors and people we admire, those are the shoulders we stand on, and those choices feel important. Candace: And, as I've gotten older, one of the things that's been I've been so aware of is that choices that I made years ago, come back to me in ways that I never thought would be true. I don't believe that everything is fate. Or that necessarily everything happens for a good reason. Because some bad stuff happens, you know, but I do believe opportunity is put in front of us time after time after time. And that's what's laid out. And that, within that we make choices. And those choices, sometimes they're good choices. And sometimes they're like, “wow, that was a wrong choice”, in terms of how things have turned out, and “what am I going to do about that?” Are we going to be defeated by that? Am I going to be angry about that? Am I going to be a victim? Or am I gonna make something of it that turns it into a lesson of some kind? Candace: My purpose is to be my best self. And what do I mean by that? There's a poet who I like a lot named Mary Oliver. And the last line of one of her poems is, “I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.” So I think that's what I mean by being my best self. I want to live fully and passionately, and mindfully. In this present moment I want to find ways to be joyful and to share that joy with other people. I want to be a lifelong war learner. I want to love unconditionally, I want to hear people's stories and share those stories. I long to explore the outside world for sure. And to get back to traveling and that kind of thing. Also, from the pandemic. I've learned, I want to explore more inside. What's going on inside. And I think a new exploration place for me right now is I want to prepare myself and the people around me for my death, so that it can be, I hesitate to say good because I'm not sure that that's always the case. But that it can be fully experienced and then it can be okay.

< Back Sean's Story Sean talks to his match about the differences between them and their values caused by the differences in their cultures and generations. He also discusses the impact of American values and how media and modern technology play a role in individualism. 00:00 / 03:24 I don't think the biggest difference between us, if I'm being honest, is our age. I think our difference is a lot of our upbringing. Which we talked a lot about the difference in how in Russia there is no concept of privacy, but to me privacy is one of my most fundamental things, one of the most fundamental concepts that America has is privacy, everyone I know is obsessed with it, every person I consider to be in a different generation from myself especially - my parents loves their privacy, it's just such a fundamental thing in America. I think that our cultural differences from you growing up in the Soviet Union are the big differences between us. But the older generation, if we are talking about the American generation, is so different from people like myself. I think the older American population is very very individualistic. I think at times, this is an experience I have with a lot of people in older generations. Their thought process is “me first, me first, me first.” it's a product of the society they grew up in. In America for society, the cold war was going on and America had to be the pinnacle of the top. How do you get to the top? - You work hard! That is where the health concept of pulling yourself by your bootstraps comes from in America, which I don’t really believe in. I just think the older generation just has this idea that individualism is more important than having a community or having different world views. I think that I see that a lot in my life that it is - well I need to help myself first before I can help anyone else first, I think that comes into the American economy, and I think the American economy is run by the older generation. It is not run by people my age, this individualism leads to a lot of dangerous concepts in America too. We look at the failures of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the individualism that people didn't wear masks, it was their body, they didn't have to wear a mask - to hell with if they gave another person COVID, if they wanted to get COVID that was their prerogative. I think that that was such an awful and dangerous ideology and I think it led to a lot of divisions in the country based on that. The biggest difference between the generations is that my generation tends to have more of a holistic world view, we look at the world as a community rather than the older generation looking at themself first whereas my generation looks at other people first. I don't necessarily think that my generation is more compassionate or caring, I think my generation has access to resources that this generation didn't have growing up. In my generation, if I wanted to reach out to someone in Russia, or the Middle East or Europe, I could do that if I wanted to, I could. I think that comes with a lot of, I'm not so different from this other person. Social connectedness on social media and text comes with a lot of drawbacks, there are a lot of dangers to it. I think one of the best things it has done for my generation is connected the world and made the world a smaller place and shown people that we are more human and more alike than we thought we were. My upbringing really got this idea of “you are different from other people around the world, you are very very different” but then growing up I have had instagram twitter, everything at my fingertips and then I realize - oh no I'm not that different. We all had a lot of the same childhood experiences, we all lived in the same cultures and even if we didn't live in the same culture, you are still human and you still have this - I should still care about this person even though we are different and come from a different culture. Previous Next

< Back Raluca's Story Raluca’s family immigrated to America when she was 6 years old. At first, she didn’t fully understand or appreciate her family background or Romanian culture. Most of all, she disliked her name and wanted nothing more but to change it one day. She grew up embarrassed about who she was–but after going back to her country for the first time again at 16 years old, everything changed. 00:00 / 04:23 I remember that when I was little my Grandma would tell me stories about this Greek princess named Rulu and how my name Raluca came from her. I was born in Romania and when I was 6 years old we came to the United States for a new and better life. In first grade in America, I noticed that no one could really pronounce my name correctly, everyone always seemed to ask me oh what kind of name is that? And it didn't take very long for me to become very sick and tired of hearing that question. My move to a new country brought many many changes, most of which I was too young to understand completely. Something I did realize however was I was really excited to come here and I remember my family was crying when we left, but I didn't understand why until I grew up a little bit more. I worked really hard to fit in because my biggest nightmare was just standing out in a crowd and I really tried to change myself to belong here. Whenever I met a new friend when I was growing up I would just tell them my name was something else and I would make up a name that was American because I wanted to pretend, just to see what it was like for a moment to be what I thought was normal. The thing that embarrassed me the most at the time was my parents and their accents. Especially my Dad, with his big thick Romanian accent, whenever we were in public I would sush them if they dared speak to me in Romanian or I would block my ears and I would say shhh. I remember just being so mad that they had accents, but I think that also comes with maturity at the time I just didn’t understand. Looking back I feel so awful now because of thinking like that just when I was little and I didnt know any better but now I look at that with admiration and respect and so much appreciation and I think that I would never get mad at them now for being talked down to because of their accents. I never understood at the time how much my parents sacrificed for us and how hard they had to work to give us this glamorous life that we were able to have. I went from being just so embarrassed about my name and my culture and my parents and not being American to having this admiration and respect for it all when I was 16 years old. 10 years after our move to America, we went back to Romania for the first time. The city I am from is called Yash, there are these beautiful flowers blooming all in the trees there called florile de tei. What amazed me the most about my country really was meeting the people there. I felt like I saw kindness like I haven't really seen in America and I felt love like I never felt and I just felt this sense of belonging that I didn't feel here. I just felt like I was torn away from my home and that this is where I really belonged and my parents took me away and I had no say in that so I started questioning you know why did we leave. I just realized that this America had a better life for me but at the same time I grew up without my family. I guess it just made me realize that these are the only people that truly matter and honestly if anyone ever judged me in this country that it didn't matter that much. Previous Next

< Back Taylor's Story Taylor talks about transitioning into UMass as a transfer student and finding her passion for Public Health. She found that public health captures all the things she loves including caring for others. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 02:43 I first intended to go into nursing, so when I was in highschool I was applying to colleges and I only was applying for nursing. So I got into Quinnipiac University for nursing and that’s where I went my freshman year. I wanted to do that because I wanted to do something taking care of people, that was really important to me and I grew up with three younger siblings, I always liked caring for others, especially children. So, I thought that nursing aligned with my beliefs and what I wanted to do. And then I went to nursing school and I didnt love it. So, I just kind of relieved that yes it's helping people but I would rather be on the administrative end and also I didn't love the school that I was going to, I didn’t feel a sense of community. I was trying to find a different school to go to, and my best friend went to school at UMass so I would come and visit her and I ended up liking the school a lot better. So I transferred here but I couldn’t transfer for nursing, and I was still interested in nursing at the time, but I wasn’t completely sold on it yet. So, I transferred and I was like I just want to do something in health care, I don’t really care what it is, So I just kind of picked public health and was like we’ll figure this out and if I need to change programs I will later. And so, I went into public health, my first class was my public health 200 class with Gloria, the professor of this class also, and it was basically an intro to public health and I immediately was like, yep this is what I want to do, this is helping people and doing something in health care, but it’s not nursing and I know that’s not what I want to do. This is exactly what I want. And then, I took a community health development class and I knew that that would be much more of the direction that I would like to go in than nursing. Going into college, or at least me graduating highschool, I had the expectation that I would know what I wanted to do and that I would stick to it and that nothing was gonna change about it, and that I was gonna be a nurse, and you know, graduate and be a nurse. So the fact that didn’t work out, part of me was a little disappointed because I was like, oh I thought this was what I wanted to do, but I think that was part of me figuring out what I wanted to do and who I am. And learning to trust the process, I think was a big thing. And trust yourself! Yeah, definitely. Previous Next

< Back Brenda's Story Brenda talks about her experience being a daughter to Brazilian immigrants and first generation college student. Brenda describes the transformation in her perspective from once desperately wanting to fit in to typical American standards, to now embracing her Brazilian roots and culture. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 04:01 Both of my parents emigrated from this state in Brazil called Minas Gerais. My Mom came from the capital which is Belo Horizonte and my Dad is from this small, more rustic rural town called Governador Valadares. I didn’t think too much about it in my early, early ages but as I started getting into like third grade, fourth grade, with people, you know, dressing up for St. Patrick's day. And just being like, there is no Brazilian recognition, like really, there would be hispanic heritage month that we kind of talked about and black history month but Brazil is really weird because we are a little bit of everything. Usually, you know, when I am in the sun, I get like very, very tan. And my hair, especially when I was younger, was very long and big and curly and I had bushy eyebrows and I hated that. I really hated that. My best friend growing up was blonde with straight hair and blue eyes. And I would pray to God, like literally this third grader, I would cry to my Mom, and be like why don’t I have blonde hair and blue eyes, why don’t I look the way I want to look and fit this mold that I so desperately wanted to fit in. So at the time, I didn’t realize how badly I wanted to identify myself with something but that's what the issue was is that I often felt like these kind of headline identities, none of them really fit for me. But a lot of that in hindsight came from me trying to push down a lot of these aspects of myself that I feel like made me inauthentic. And it didn’t really, I guess come full circle until I got to UMass, and that's when my bubble really burst. And so my whole floor was filled with hispanic people, black people, caribbean, a very diverse mix of college kids. And when their families would come they would bring their traditional little Brazilian pastries and stuff, like pao de queijo, which is like cheese bread. And I remember this so well that one of the guys Mom came and brought it around for like to everyone on the floor, and that is such a Brazilian thing to do, like if you bring one thing you’re bringing it for everyone, I don’t know, and it just felt like, it was weird, it felt like a piece of home that I got to have at this really scary huge place. And I don't know, I feel like UMass being so big gave me the space to stop the comparison. That was when I was like, oh my god, I can stop being a poser kind of, and try to just relax a little bit, wear my hair natural. I also feel like going through different experiences and really realizing how much my parents sacrificed for me and care about me and show me so much unconditional love that not everyone in college gets to experience made me really appreciate them on a level that I never had. They really raised me with so much warmth, that it is crazy that I ever wanted them to stop being like that and be more American because it was the most nurturing environment. And now it's like, I’m like Mom please cook and yeah, just embracing that aspect also just like, now it’s time to kind of embrace differences. So yeah, I guess just like not thinking so hard about who I am and just being who I am, is what I am doing right now. Previous Next

< Back Marcia's Story Marcia explains how the simple act of being friendly and saying hi dramatically changed her world and formed life long relationships in the summer of 1968. 00:00 / 06:42 Marcia: My world dramatically changed by being friendly and saying hi to several people one summer. It was the summer of 1968. It was after my sophomore year at University of Wisconsin Madison, and I was looking forward to an exchange program with Warwick University in England. But in order to help pay for everything I had a job working in K Sandwich Shop which was at 18th Street in downtown DC. And the location of that sandwich shop was really critical to what happened next. There was a stretch of time where I guess was working a late shift, so it was relatively empty, but I noticed in another section there was this fellow who kept coming in who looked to be about my age. What looked different about him was that every time he came in he was wearing a shirt that was pastel colored, small flowers, and he had kind of longish hair. The more I looked at him, I thought, “that looks like Carnaby Street, he’s got to be British.” So, I just decided to go over one day and chat him up, which I did. It turned out, indeed, he did just graduate from the London School of Economics and he was on his way to what he called Barkley—which was Berkley for a law degree. But he was staying with very close friend of his family who lived in London, and I immediately thought, “Oh my god, this poor guy he’s just with grown ups all the time, maybe he would really like to find out what its like not to be a grown up.” So, I asked him if he wanted to come over to my house for dinner the next night. Now I have to put that in a little context, my father had a gift store and there were lots of traveling salesmen, and when I was growing up it was not unusual at all to sit at the dinner table and to find a stranger there. So, I picked him up where he was staying, and we just a had a really fun dinner together. I remember just sitting in our living room on the floor with our backs supported by this sofa, and I had my little important notebook with me, and he gave me all sorts of information about England, about London in particular. And then he gave me the name and the phone number of a very good friend of his in London in case I wanted to get in touch with him. And also, he gave me the name of his parents and their phone number. So that was really lovely, and then he went on his way, and I continued to work. I went to Paris for that month, and the night before I was to leave for Paris, I got one of those really wretched 24-hour stomach bugs. I felt really terrible, but I had to leave the next day. So—I just had to do that so I did it. I ended up in the center of London at bustling Victoria Station and really wasn’t feeling that great and wasn’t sure what I was going to do until I decided I guess I should really call his friend. So, I did, I figure out how to use a phone and called his friend. I introduced myself and to my utter amazement he went, “Oh Marcia! I have been expecting to hear from you.” I went, “Oh my gosh”—that mean Alex had to have gotten in touch with his friend. So, he said, “Look, I actually can’t give you a place to stay but come here and we’ll figure out what to do.” So, he gave me the directions, I followed them, I got to his place, and he said, “I’ve been thinking about this, and I think you have to call his parents.” And I’m like, what? That was so bizarre to me, I was just—really? So, I picked up the phone and I called them, and the same thing happened. I introduced myself and they went, “Oh Marcia! We’ve been expecting to hear from you. Yes, come over. Nick is having a dinner party but I’m sure he would just be thrilled to have you join.” They were so nice and interesting, and everyone was just terrific. And then, I told them what my plans were. I had a friend from Wisconsin who was in Norwich. We had talked about in the Spring to go to England, and he said, “Why don’t you come out and spend some time there?” Okay. I stayed there for three days or so, enjoyed myself, and then I was ready for the next chapter which was going to be going to Coventry to work where I was going to be for that semester. I started putting my thumb out, getting ready to hitch; and I tried and I tried and I tried. It went on for quite awhile and I was having absolutely no success. What I didn’t know was that it was impossible to hitch in that direction, what I really needed to do was go back to the hub. I needed to go to back London and then I needed to go north. When I did figure out and I was back in London, it was already getting kind of late, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get to Coventry in time before it got dark. I also remembered how wonderful that family was, and I thought, “I just wonder if I could just stay there one more night” so I called and they went, “Oh yes! Come, we’re having a dinner party tonight, but we would love for you to join.” So that was that. I decided—It was just a semester exchange program, but I just didn’t think it was enough time. I really wanted to be immersed in another culture, but the complication was where I would live. I did find a place in a little village, Kenilworth, and overtime that actually didn’t work out. In the end, because I had classes only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I could do research in London. I could go to the British Museum every day and I could live with the Finers. Which is what I did. Maurice would drive me to Euston Station on Tuesday mornings, I would take the train up, I would go to my classes, I would spend one night in Kenilworth, and then I would hitch back. And I did for months and months and months, and I just became an integral part of the family. Previous Next

< Back Jake's Story Jake reflects on two similar scenarios he has encountered with bees and how that has made him realize the power of one’s own mindset when it comes to handling situations differently. He talks about how he keeps a positive mindset which has translated into looking at things in a more gratifying way and spreading positivity in other aspects of his life. 00:00 / 04:45 I guess my story starts when I was going into High School, the summer going into High School, basically both these instances are times that I got stung by the entire nest of wasps. So the first incident was with my friends. Then we did sort of a hide and seek tag game. I decided it would be good to hide in the woods next to his house instead of like in the yard you know extra secretive. I go like slightly off the path because obviously if I'm on the path I can be seen and then as I'm waiting I feel sort of like things in my legs and I have no idea what it is so I'm like oh oh and then I start running away and it's actually horrible cuz as I'm running like that's like the worst thing you can do obviously. So it gets more traumatic so I'm running down the street and the type, I’ve never been stung by a wasp nest, and basically the pain waves are like sort of comes in like waves and I realize after it's on purpose cuz I was obviously stuck multiple times but the waves make it feel like you're being stung like a million times. So I'm running down the street and then I'm like no it's stuck in my shirt so I take off my shirt. Like I said, eventually now I'm completely panicked. I sit down like my friend's mom is out and she's also panicked. I’m exhausted. According to the fire department, I passed out for five seconds or whatever, so overall horrible and I didn't think it would happen again. Then in my summer camp job, it was all outdoors because of Covid so they weren't inside and I had to walk the kids to basically the other side of the school where there is a bathroom Just as I am walking completely innocently I see one little like wasp thing near like a hole and the kids are all lined up behind me and I walk just completely on the sidewalk, not on the grass, and they all attack me. So here I was and not a single one attacked the kids, just me. They're like in shock but it was a completely different situation and I feel like basically the essence of the story is that like the power of your mind and like sort of your mindset. So in that case, I was literally just standing there and I just took it and I was like oh my like I was just completely calm and it was crazy that happened twice in the reactions were so different and it wasn't it wasn't because you know I know I was stung by bees before so I learned from it. It was more just that you know here I was a camp counselor so I was like oh I have to act calm you know so like if a bee stings you you’re not going to panic. If ten sting you you’re going to try and not panic either and that reaction really stayed with me. I was all red and they and I then I continued walking them to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom. I took them to the bathroom. You know I was fine. Completely different reaction and just reflecting on that was like sort of the importance of your mind and like how your body reacts cuz it really does have a connection I feel like. One of my favorite character traits of me is my positive attitude on things. One of the ways I sort of like I think naturally I am positive but one of the ways I got to be so positive was I started doing gratitude journaling. Before bed I would just close my eyes and instead of thinking about random things during the day I would just think about things I was positive about and then I would just fall asleep and that would be the ending of my day. It was actually super cool cuz like first of all you don't realize how many good things happen every day but then also I started being like during my day I was looking for things that I could write or tell myself at the end to like add to my list. And then eventually after a while after a few weeks of doing that then just subconsciously I was like absorbing positive things and it was like it was super cool and I actually started texting sometimes I text my friends instead of doing it before bed I'll just text my friends randomly like things I’m grateful for like that day and then a lot of times they text back things they're grateful for so I hope that sort of spreads the positive mindset stuff or whatever. The bee situation, looking back I think it encapsulated how different scenarios and how you react to events completely determines the difference in what happens. Previous Next

< Back Djenabou's Story Djenabou talks with Rene about her family. She shares her exceptional relationship that she has with her sister. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:08 Djenabou: So my youngest brother is named TJ, that’s his nickname but his name is Tijani. He is 17 years old. And then higher from that is my brother named Hamadou. He is 18. Then there is me, 22. And then my other sister named Fanta, she just turned 31 a couple days ago. And then my eldest sister's name is Isha and she is also 31. I'm closer to my sister, Fanta since Isha, my eldest sister left when she was 16, had to leave the country. So I grew up with my sister Fanta for all of my life; all the bickering, arguing, we grew really, really close because we were always together. We would go to the movies together like each week or go to the mall each week and stuff. Rene: “What was it like when you were little?” Djenabou: I think one moment that I remember with Fanta was we were watching High School Musical together on VHS and I love musicals now because she had High School Musical so that was a really connected bond between us. And another thing, I think when I was in elementary school, she would always go to all of my award shows because my parents were always working and stuff like that so my sister would always be there for my award shows and stuff. And it was always important because when she went to see me receive all my awards and even at my graduation too, when my parents weren’t there. Rene: “You know I’m a big sister and I have two younger sisters and I was a stand-in mom for them frequently, so I understand the tenderness of that relationship. So she was like your mom at times, your big sister, tell me a little bit about how you would characterize your relationship with her.” Djenabou: I think about tough love, like she is very honest, very brutally honest. But I know she does that because she cares about everyone in the house. And I know that if I ask her for something she'll do it. No questions asked shell do it. She will ask questions a little bit after but she’ll definitely do it. She's very caring, she's funny too. She has her moments, I guess. She's such a perfectionist also, a very high maintenance person. She's very very independent as well. Rene: So what would you most like, if you could tell her thank you, what is it you would say to her? Djenabou: I would thank her for a lot of stuff, like being the person I can go to. Also, just being the role model for me too. And always making sure I’m good and I have everything. If I don't have anything she will provide me with that. Even planning for my birthday too with my group of friends, she'll pay for it even though the bill is high. She will go out of her way and pay for it. Just like that second motherly figure and stuff. Rene: Really, how lovely. Previous Next