Home. (Burlington, VT ).
My Dear Readers,Below you will find the final report I just completed for the Watson Foundation as well a few photos from the last quarter of my year. It's a good deal longer than the other quarterly reports I've written this year, so brace yourself.
I think this report will serve as the bittersweet ending to this blog. I have enjoyed sharing stories and photos with you all so much, that I doubt it will be the last time I keep a blog, but I think it's the end of Names Across Nations. I will, of course, post here and let you know if I continue on my research on names in a different medium, or blog about my life in general somewhere else. If you're finding this blog after its completion and have questions about the Watson Fellowship, or suggestions, comments, or ideas about research on names, you can always send me an e-mail at nell.a.bangjensen@gmail.com.
It is sad for me to say goodbye here because I have been so very grateful for the support and encouragement of my readers. Despite the complaints about the overwhelmingly tech-heavy world we live in, having a way to communicate with the people I care about (as well as strangers-turned-friends who stumbled upon this), was not only a gift but a necessity on such an independent year. You all have been the most supportive, thought-provoking, and dedicated readers that I could have hoped for. Thanks to this blog, I was able to be connected to a couple at a Pastor Training College in Zambia who invited me into their home, and I was able to be connected to my grandparents in Massachusetts, who read my entries aloud to each other.
It's been such a gift to share this journey with you all. As you'll read in my final report, I've been saying a lot of these lately, but seriously, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
With love,
Nell
Currently on display in my backyard (Thank you, Uncle Per).
September 1, 2012
To the Watson Fellowship Office,
It is
so lovely to be writing to you now that I can finally envision who will be reading
it on the other end. Hello from
Burlington, Vermont, where, after a month of trips to see friends and attend weddings,
a family vacation in Prince Edward Island, and of course, the fleeting and
somewhat magical Watson conference, I am finally settling back home. Some things
are taking longer to adapt to than others. Having two people who willingly feed
me and don’t charge me rent has been an easy adjustment; overwhelming American
grocery stores and the size of my closet, not so much. I’m also getting used to being here without
my family’s beloved dog, Cally, who died while I was on the last few days of my
Watson year.
The places
where I sat down to write my other quarterly reports (Hyderabad, India,
Copenhagen, Denmark, and Dublin, Ireland), feel a far cry from my parents’
couch. When I last wrote one of these
(what feels like ages ago), I had just begun my time in project country #6:
Ireland. Soon after I wrote, I moved to
Belfast where I lived with a wonderful woman, Tricia, and her seven year-old
daughter, Gaby, and spent four weeks looking into the role names play in
religious conflict there. Tricia works at the WAVE Trauma Center in downtown
Belfast, a cross-community care organization that offers support to people who
have been bereaved, injured or traumatized as a result of the Troubles. Her students at WAVE, who were from Protestant
and Catholic families, were a great resource for me. Several of them had stories from their
childhoods about casual name changes they would undergo on a daily basis at
their parents’ encouragement. A boy named Terrance, for example, went by the
more Protestant-sounding name of “Billy” when walking to school through certain
neighborhoods in order to avoid trouble. It was distressing to learn about Belfast’s
recent history especially because it happened
in a place that, in some ways, felt so much like home.
I used
my rainy days in Belfast to meet with professors at Queen’s University about
these questions and even had the opportunity to meet with one of my favorite all-time
poets, Medbh McGuckian, and talk to her about names. I was continually
surprised by the role names play in the Irish tourism industry as well. I met
with several historians who explained that because of the remarkable size of
the Irish diaspora, tracing names and researching genealogy are large draws for
many visitors and present commercial opportunities. I used
my sunny days there to go hiking and bouldering with Tricia and Gaby. Being in
the mountains made me feel the closest to home that I had been all year. I used Gaby as an excuse to explore the city
and participate in kid-centered events like the outdoor Festival of Fools and visiting
the new Titanic museum. In exchange,
Gaby gave me the title of “adopted sister” on day one and filled me in on all
the Lady Gaga songs I had been missing for the last nine months outside of the
United States. She was surprised (and perhaps slightly disappointed) to learn
that I didn’t speak exactly like the American teenagers she watched on the
Disney Channel.
I spent my last few weeks in
Ireland in the western part of the country. Galway felt the most stereotypically
“Irish” of any place I’d been to so far, and I took in the great music,
friendly populace, beautiful language and seaside. A highlight was meeting with
members of the Irish Traveling community while I was there. They told me about
their own naming traditions, and how Travelers have specific surnames that are
passed on and have become a basis for discrimination. They also told me that the custom of passing
on first names in families was so common a practice within their community that
they have an expression for it: getting “titled.” The
stability that “getting titled” provided in uniting generations seemed
especially important when in the midst of a fluid lifestyle. Interestingly, they told me that “Nell” was a
common Traveler name, and they had never met a settled person who wore it
before.
On June 5th, I took a
short flight to Reykjavik and began to make a home for myself in what would be
my last country of the year. I was rendered speechless by Iceland’s sheer beauty
and between the gorgeous weather, colorful houses and remarkably safe streets,
I found it to be one of the easiest places to be a traveler that I’d been to
thus far. It’s also a great place to
study names. Similar to what I found in Germany, names in Iceland are governmentally regulated. An
official Naming Committee approves the
names of all babies born in Iceland and follows strict rules about how names are
conjugated to fit with the grammar of the language. Names are also regulated
based on gender of the child, spelling, and meaning.
Because I had plenty of time in
Reykjavik and language wasn’t a challenge, I was able to meet with a wide
variety of people about the topic. From Guðrún Kvaran, the former chair of the
Icelandic Naming committee, to Pastor Sigurður Árni Þórðarson, a priest who
baptizes babies and is figuring out his own personal and legal responsibility
in terms of the names he baptizes them with, to young parents I met through
friends. Some of my most interesting conversations were with immigrants to
Iceland who were trying to make a place for themselves in a homogeneous place.
Before 1996, immigrants were required to change their names to Icelandic ones
in order to gain citizenship. Even today, babies born in Iceland must have
Icelandic names regardless of where their parents are from. As you can imagine,
with increasing numbers of immigrants to Iceland, it’s a controversial policy.
It would be a waste to be in
Iceland without sampling some of its magnificent landscapes, so in addition to
my research, I did my fair share of traipsing around volcanoes and glaciers,
never quite believing my eyes. I spent the two months I was there trying to
work on my knitting skills like the rest of the population, and trying to
adjust to the disorienting 24-hours of sunlight. I was also the lucky to meet Sarah
Brownsberger, a poet and Watson Fellow of the class of 1981 who was currently
living in Iceland and who invited me over because, as she put it, “you should
always feed a Watson.”
The last month in my Watson year
was, counter-intuitively, one of my hardest. Because, on the grand timeline of the year I
was so close to home, it felt hard to be forming new relationships I knew would
soon end. Constantly investing in new
places and new people felt more exhausting than it had before. My emotions
seemed to swing wildly between aching for home, feeling like I needed to take
advantage of everything while I still could, and already anticipating the loss
that this year’s end would be. The last
three months of my year was the only chunk of time that was spent exclusively
in Europe, and the slightly more familiar systems and foods made me feel much
closer to home (psychologically and geographically), than I had been up to that
point. Because issues of personal safety and health were less at the forefront
of my mind than they may have been in other places, in some ways, it was harder
to keep my mind busy and not worry about what I’d face when I got home. Finally,
on July 27th, the date I had occasionally counted down to but never believed
would actually come, I flew home.
In retrospect, my first few days
home in Vermont between when I arrived back in the states and attended the Watson
conference were spent in a bit of a haze. I kept myself busy stuffing old clothes
into bags for Goodwill, while rapidly trying to hang onto the “Watson year
self” I had developed; one that was slipping away at an alarming rate now that
I was back in my adolescent bedroom. The conference provided some much needed
closure, a refreshing reassurance that this experience would forever be a part
of my life, and the chance to be surrounded by some of the most interesting,
kind, and passionate people I had ever met. Above all, I was so profoundly
humbled to be in their company.
As evidenced by the fact that I still
can’t get through more than thirty seconds of the Watson conference video
without tears running down my face, the experience is still quite raw. I can’t
really believe I’ve already been back in the states for over four weeks now. I am just beginning to process what a gift
this was, how, perhaps in ways that are only obvious to me, it has rattled,
shaked, and transformed me to the core. Burlington, Vermont feels, in some ways, like
an entirely different city than the one I left, but I think it might just be
me.
I will admit that writing this
final report was somewhat of a struggle for me. On some subconscious level I
knew that once I wrote it I’d be closing the book of this year, even though, as
many people reassured us at the conference, the Watson experience will be a
lens through which I look at the world for the rest of my life. Beyond this fear of letting go, however, was
also the knowledge that I’d never be able to adequately express all I had to
say to the Watson Foundation. How exactly do you thank someone for giving you
an experience that most people never have in their lifetimes? For having the
trust to give me some a generous sum of money and such enormous freedom? To
have supported and encouraged me so very much along the way? There is a sense
of guilt that comes with having this experience at 23, one that others only
dream of, and also from being in so many places where people have so few of the
opportunities, and even basic living conditions that I take for granted. Life can be profoundly unfair sometimes.
Only when sitting down to write
this did the irony dawn on me that this was a challenge I faced all year
long. When strings of old Indian women
would hand me coconut after coconut to drink, when a stranger in Berlin said I
could live with her for a month, free of charge, when people welcomed me into
their homes and offices and market stalls with open arms to talk to me about
their names, and in doing so, about what they held dear. I faced this challenge
over and over again. I feel I’ll never quite deserve all of the incredible
goodness the world has offered me, but time and time again as I left each
place, I learned to accept it, with open arms right back. To smile and say
“thank you” and make a mental note to
pay it forward somewhere, somehow, and accept that giving is a gift too. This year has left me feeling deeply indebted
to the world, and guilt aside, I’m thinking this might not be a bad way to go
about my life in it.
In some ways, it was a year of
discomfort. My first night back in the U.S., climbing into my bed, it was as if
a physical weight had completely dropped off my chest. I hadn’t even realized
I’d been carrying around this weight of responsibility, of being slightly on
edge all year, until it had evaporated.
I came face to face with many realities that I hadn’t come to terms with
before, and it took being there to realize my own power to do so. Things that I
would never have done voluntarily arose out of necessity, and I recognized that
they were within me all along. I found the language to console a man after his
father had died. I rode on the backs of
motorcycles because that was simply how I needed to get around. I went to
dinner parties where no one spoke my language and I laughed when everybody else
laughed and nodded as if I understood. I
learned to elbow my way to the front of lines, to deal with taunts and stares, when
to cheat the system to get a visa extension, when to go to a clinic. I learned how much I loved to be alone. I
learned that relationships were worth having, even when you had to walk away
from them too soon. I learned to feel patriotic about where I came from. I
learned to give myself structure in an unstructured world; to redefine
productivity, the true meaning of independence.
Words were a theme for me this
year. As I studied names and their meanings, and got wrapped up in informal
interviews and conversations, these thoughts would swim around in my brain
until I would go home and write about them. I feel like I rediscovered myself
as a writer while simultaneously realizing I could find a common language
without words. I learned many new languages this year; not just bits of
Indonesian and Moroccan Arabic and Icelandic, but also more metaphorical
languages. I learned the complicated language of travelers discussing options
for malarial pills, and the language of aggressive bargaining in market stalls
and medinas. And most of all, the
meaning of names.
I loved my research. I’m proud of
some of the writing that came out of it. I’m not sure if I’ll try to continue
on my exploration of names in a formal way or not, but I might, because I think
what I found was interesting and unusual, and, at the heart of it, so very
human. I loved hearing stories. I loved seeing the light in people’s eyes when
they told me about how they named their children. I loved making people feel
like what they had to say about it was worth telling and worth being listened
to. I loved the family stories passed
on, the cultural traditions, the strings of syllables that formed the sounds
they called each other by and that somehow, regardless of literal meaning,
always meant love.
When people ask me how this year
was, the most honest response I have yet to come up with is “full.” Every
moment of sadness felt miserable, every moment of happiness was exuberant. I was laughing with some fellow Watsons at the
conference that at times it seemed like our emotional lives were akin to those
of an extremely hormonal pregnant woman. I would cry or laugh all the time,
seemingly for no reason. When the simple task of finding & buying a new
bottle of shampoo is overwhelmingly difficult, the successes are all the more
powerful.
I’m hesitant to talk about the idea of being
full because “living life fully” is such a cliché at this point. But the
definitions I created for myself of living a full life this year were
complicated and deliberate. It wasn’t just about saying yes more than I said no
(though that was certainly a part of it), but also about addressing things head
on. A full life is one that is full of discomfort and extremes as much as it is
about seizing the day. It’s about being
mindful and sitting with uncertainty but also about being unafraid to talk
openly about race and gender and politics and religion, even if you’re scared
you might not have the adequate language to do so.
And perhaps because I had the
knowledge that I was living a full life, somehow the extremes of emotions
created a kind of balance; discomfort turned into comfort. I
wrote in my last report about the invincibility that arose in realizing I could
land anywhere, and be just fine, (metaphorically or physically). This year I
learned to create a kind of sustainable happiness. This is not to say that I
didn’t have bad days, but that I knew I could create for myself a life that was
worth living and that I was holding on to fiercely and gratefully. Maybe I would have arrived at this point, so
free of anxiety, so full of wonder about the world, the people in it, and
myself, at some point in my life, but the Watson gave me the gift of reaching
this peak while I still have a lot left of it to live. I’ve learned to listen
to myself, to figure out what defines me, even (or especially) when everything
around me is changing. I’ve learned my contributions
are worthwhile, my head and my heart are full, and I can belong anywhere and
everywhere.
My parents are amazed that I am
home, with no plans set, and stress-free. I have the confidence that when I
need to move onto the next thing, whatever it may be, I will. I know that whatever decision I make about
what to do next, I will somehow turn it into the right decision, at least temporarily,
because that’s just how we keep moving through our lives day after day. There is an immense feeling of liberation that
comes from seeing that there are so many different ways to live a life in this
world. You realize you can’t really get it wrong.
For now I’ll keep writing,
haphazardly applying to jobs in east coast cities that look interesting,
enjoying the beginning signs of fall in Vermont, and replaying the Watson video
until I’m ready to move on. I know my journey is not over. I know that these experiences will, somehow,
keep unfolding and surprising me. Sometimes the year feels like a dream, or something
that happened in another lifetime. At other moments things come back to me so
strongly; the taste of a Balinese coconut pancake, the hot beads of sweat on my
forehead in a forest in Kerala, the lights of the Berlinale film festival. I am savoring these memories, knowing they’ve
somehow transformed me into a person who is in and of this world. I’m not sure
how this year will continue to affect and transform me, only that it will
inevitably continue to do so. As to what I’ll answer when people ask me what I’ll
do with this experience, I’ll quote a favorite author, Cheryl Strayed, who once
said to respond to questions such as these by saying, “Carry it with me, as I do everything that
matters.”
It’s mattered quite a lot.
Thank
you for everything.
Nell
Photos:
-City Hall & Downtown Belfast
-At the top of Cave Hill, Belfast
-Cave Hill, with Gaby and Jack the dog (Belfast, Northern Ireland)
-Saying goodbye to my new Irish family; with Tricia & Gaby in Belfast
-Seaside & Houses in Galway, Ireland
-Cows in Connemara, Ireland
-Downtown Reykjavik (arrival in my last country!)
-In Reykjavik next to a wall of Icelandic names!
-In my backyard at MIDNIGHT in Reykjavik (please note how amazingly light it is outside AND my new Icelandic sweater).
-City Hall & Downtown Belfast
-At the top of Cave Hill, Belfast
-Cave Hill, with Gaby and Jack the dog (Belfast, Northern Ireland)
-Saying goodbye to my new Irish family; with Tricia & Gaby in Belfast
-Seaside & Houses in Galway, Ireland
-Cows in Connemara, Ireland
-Downtown Reykjavik (arrival in my last country!)
-In Reykjavik next to a wall of Icelandic names!
-In my backyard at MIDNIGHT in Reykjavik (please note how amazingly light it is outside AND my new Icelandic sweater).
-On a hill in Vik, Iceland.
-In Reynisfjara black sand beach (Vik, Iceland).
-In Reynisfjara black sand beach (Vik, Iceland).
