Perspectives and Transitions: Last day in the states

Despite months of preparation I find myself a day before leaving with a considerable todo list. It's not unmanageable or overwhelming (not when I rationally look at it anyhow) but its substantive enough that it will require staying active most of the day. What I really want more than anything is to sit in my home in my favorite Halloween owl pajamas, kiss the walls of my home, adore my eco-latex bed of wonders, and relax. I did my best to prepare as much as I could but with my mother being so ill the last several months, my time has been taken up by caretaking. Like usual, I know I'm being too hard on myself. It's a huge undertaking to balance parent caretaking, law school applications, and preparing for a RTW trip. When I speak with other people who have done major traveling like this, I realize that I am doing well in my preparations. Perspectives, it's all about perspective. Placing things in perspective seems to be one of my major life lessons these days. Our emotions so easily skew our vision of reality.

I've been thinking a lot around perspectives of poverty. I'm about to give myself that triple espresso rude awakening on global poverty that happens when one does international travel and that knowledge, albeit at this point only theoretical, has placed my own poverty in perspective. Let's face it, I'm pretty vocal around class awareness in my social circles. As one of the few people in the predominately white educated middle class social circle I reside in who comes from an ethnic impoverished background, I feel it’s my duty to speak up regarding the cultural divide. There are so many things the middle class (even the lower middle class) take for granted in regards to opportunity, comfort, and security that I feel compelled to bring up other narratives that illustrate a different experience. I think in my ghetto days, we'd call that "representin'". Like issues around race - it's easy when one is not in the affected group to think it doesn't matter. Class doesn't matter. Race doesn't matter. Gender doesn’t matter. All easy concepts when one is middle class, white, and male. These things do matter when you are affected by them on a regular basis. My friends will never understand what it was like getting in church lines on Sundays for bags of stale food that were donated and being told by my mother to be "grateful" for the two year old rice-a-roni someone dug out of the back of their closet to assuage their guilt on Christmas day.

I've been acutely aware of class since I was a child because they have been with me every day of my life. I acutely remember the feeling of lack that surrounded me as a child, from our struggles with keeping food on the table to my mom not being able to afford my p.e. gym shirt in middle grade and how I was put on p.e. "restriction" for most of the year and had to "walk the field" instead of participating in sports due to lack of money to afford the proper $20 shirt. There are lots of ways in which my friends have no idea what life is like for people in a lower class. I don't have a lot of friends from my socio-economic class these days because quite literally very few people break through  from one class to another and now I live in a world of Starbucks, philosophy clubs, and pedicures. 

The welfare class in America is wealthier than most of the world.

Though I may never have had vacations or a Nintendo (I am dating myself here) growing up, though I shopped in Kmart and Goodwill, I never had to worry about spending days without food. We always had plentiful rice and beans. I never had to worry about sleeping in a cardboard box or shanty. I never had to worry about having clean and clear water to drink or about having heat on cold nights. Medi-cal allowed me access to medical care when I needed it and education was free. Though my own life forced me into holding down a job at eleven, I had to do so with a fake id. Thank goodness for child labor laws. I never ended up working 15 hours a day in a toxic factory with dangerous machinery. There are so many things we take for granted in our culture because they are so ubiquitous we don't pay attention to them. We may theoretical know that we are "blessed" but I'm sure it really sinks into the core of our being in the visceral way that true knowledge does.

I feel this trip is going to allow me to place my little version of the universe into perspective and I'm looking forward to the culture shock. I'm looking forward to the increased gratitude for the things I take for granted and an increased felt awareness of the living conditions of the poor in countries not as wealthy as our own. It's fun to talk about traveling given I haven't done any yet. :: grin :: To me though this trip is a lot about the felt human experience. When you expose yourself to the sights, smells, tastes, and physical sensations of a different culture it allows your mind to build stronger and more lasting memories. With a bit of neuroscience, I hope I am imprinted with an even deeper daily conscious awareness of all that is happening each moment on this planet. I hope to be able to hold the whole world in my mind and have as accurate of a perspective as possible and I think this trip will help me with this goal.