Looking forward

I've been reading a lot over the past couple days in between memorizing new words that I feel I should know.

"To be able to." Most recently, I've been reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and while I kept saying how I didn't like it, didn't think it should have won the awards it did, it's growing on me and offers a very different outlook on writing for me. I think I'll be a better writer for reading it.

"Tree." Yesterday we went on an excursion to work with a program called SYC (Stepanavan Youth Center) to help them run an environmental program with a bunch of kids from ages 5-16. It was a lot of fun and the kids were way more into picking up trash than I've ever been. I think it was just the ability to run around and do something that they were most excited about. Afterwards we went to an arboretum that was definitely interesting but seemed only moderately purposeful. It's certainly nice to have such a large, peaceful greenspace for the community to enjoy, but the majority of the plants and trees there were non-native, which doesn't exactly promote the healthy ecological balance I think they should be trying to preserve. But in any case it was beautiful and reminded me a lot of home (since many of the same species were being grown there). Yesterday's excursion made mу miss TVSR a lot, playing with kids and talking about trees.

"Future." The individuals who were actually running the program yesterday for the children were part of a European volunteer program. They were not Armenian, didn't speak the language, and didn't confess to having any particularly strong interest in Armenia before they came. I thought I had a hard time answering the question, "why did you decide to come?" Before I left, I talked with both my uncle and my mother about the reason behind me coming here. While neither of them asked me explicitly why I chose to, they both seemed to understand that whatever the reason, this summer was just a single step in a much larger path. And while I have no idea what is at the end of this path, or even 6 months down the path, the sureness with which I will continue on is certainly developing here.

"To help." I'm a little frustrated at work because I feel like I could be doing more for them, that they could be doing more themselves. This is definitely echoed with other volunteers, but I think we are all slowly finding ways to do more and more and help as much as we can while we are here.

"To show." I've been thinking a lot about identity this past week. Another volunteer, my friend from Jordan, Hovhannes, said to me the other day "it seems like people in America mix a lot. Why is that?" And I couldn't think of a better answer than "why not?" Looking back now, I think that there may not be a better answer, but It's an interesting experience being around people who, even though they were born and raised in America their whole lives, regard themselves more as Armenian than American. I'm constantly asked if I will marry an Armenian woman to which my response is always "how am I supposed to know?" I've prided myself on not identifying myself by my ethnicity, or anything else I happened to be born as, had no control over, but being in a country in which one of these things I was born as is weighed so heavily, it's hard not to feel the pull of my ancestry to these people. woodsburner, woodsburner, woodsburner

But I press on. It's been an incredible two weeks in Gyumri and it's picking up momentum fast. At first my worry had been how I would possibly fill up 10 weeks. And now, it's how I'll possibly fit it all in.

or, from the copper beeches, one leaf fall