“Homesick”
Whenever I am asked to define myself, I am often left at a brief loss for words. The instinctive thing to do would be to simply let the question roll off my back like a duck and say, “I am me,” but that would be a most unoriginal and fairly juvenile way to go about such a delicate subject, I think. Of course I am me, but who is that and what distinguishes me from all these other billions of voices looming around in this great ocean of life here on planet Earth? Well, as human beings, we are naturally complex and because of that, it is fair to say that in order to fully answer the question, I must begin by delving into my childhood, where the seeds of my identity were first sown.
Growing up, I was never the popular girl in primary school. I did not have many friends, and gossiping over all things elementary was not the sun about which my world revolved. I was never the popular girl in school because I was privately educated at home for the first nine years of my life. This was because my mother had been raised in the semi-traditional English school system and felt that, as a maternal responsibility, she should be my primary educator, not the government. It was also because we often travelled to and from England visiting family and this was something to be done whenever the American schools were still in session, so as to save money on airfare and other travelling expenses. My father never came along, due to his immeasurably convoluted work schedule and frugal nature. He always feared adding to the burden of costly holidays, knowing how bad the exchange rates can get.
It is in this way that I always seemed to be closer and much more attached to my esteemed English heritage. “You are descended from nobility, Rachel, great Duchesses, you should be proud!” my grandmother would say to me often, and I was proud. I still am, but much like Gus Portokalos from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” she only seemed to care about constantly reminding her children and grandchildren of how proud they ought to always feel about being English, so naturally, some in our midst grew weary of her lectures, my sister being one. My mother did not like the idea of exposing her children to their grandmother’s shamefully grotesque elitism, but she was the only living grandparent in our life and so Maman always seemed to find it in herself to ignore ‘Her Royal Highness’s’ tirades about the ineptitude of non-English speaking foreigners and the like.
Education was my mother’s strongest issue. She stressed the importance of being well informed, of thinking for one’s self and challenging societal standards. She taught me French early on and I haven’t stopped wanting to learn new languages since. I finished school well. I was the golden graduate, bearing two stoles, one for High Academic Honours and the other for Honours in Theatre Arts. It was no surprise to anyone in my family that I would not only graduate from high school, but also that I would represent some of the most highly ranked students in my class, and although I had been in a fight with my grandmother earlier that day over my being late to lunch (a colossal faux pas in traditional English culture, by the way), I knew she was proud of me. My sister did not attend the ceremony; she swore it would bore her to tears. This disappointed me a little because even though she and I haven’t always gotten along very well, I wanted so much for her to celebrate that moment with me.
As for Cal State San Bernardino, every single friend of mine was (and some still are) shocked at my decision to come here because I never had any intention of attending university in this country, let alone in San Bernardino. I had applied to a private university called Richmond over in England and was accepted, as well as awarded a scholarship, but the cost was still too high and a co-signer was not an option. My father does not agree with loans and my mother couldn’t really help much at all either. As a backup, however, I put in for Cal States Monterey Bay and San Bernardino at the last minute, knowing I would be easily accepted to both. I would have gone to Monterey Bay, but they don’t offer a major in Theatre Arts, which is such a shame because I love and miss Monterey. Next to London, it’s almost home to me. Almost.
The falling out with Richmond has given me a lot of spiritual puzzlement over the past few months, but I like to think there is a reason it didn’t work out for me this time around. For a while, I wanted to blame it on the false notion that no one loved me enough to want to help me go to school where I felt I most belonged, in England. Was G-d trying to tell me I belong right here in Southern California?
I remember being with Maman one day and that familiar Beatles tune came on the radio, “All You Need is Love.” Naturally, I love the Beatles and was rocking out with the music, but right on the chorus, she turned it off and said to me, “They’re wrong, you know, love isn’t all you need.” I looked at her with more uncertainty than ever before and was about to ask her what she meant, but she didn’t give me the chance. “Prayer is all you need; love will follow.” Now, I cannot say that I am the most religious person in the world, of course, but for some reason her words have stayed with me ever since and I often find myself clinging to them whenever I feel uneasy and need a little solace.
As for the American side of the family, I can attribute my love of baseball and Star Trek to my Chicago-born father. I think it is safe to say that I would not be half of who I am had it not been for my father introducing me to Gene Roddenberry’s incredible vision of the future. Star Trek (the Voyager incarnation, in particular) inspired me to become a more avid writer because, after my parents’ divorce, the holidays to England stopped and I was forced to accept a 6,000 mile distance from everything I had grown so close to in my early life. It was also the homelessness I felt from the separation of my parents that drove me into the world of writing. I write to bring myself a little closer to a more perfect world, a place without suffering or money, much like the Star Trek universe. It is my little piece of heaven and I cling to it dearly. I know that I am very much an escapist, as far as writers go, as a direct result of that sense of feeling lost, just like Captain Janeway and her crew on Voyager, thousands of light years from home with only hope and determination to light the pathway back.
The escapist in me is the reason I have fallen serendipitously in love with the world of Theatre. I have spent the majority of my teenage life on various stages and in a diverse number of roles, both as an actor and as a technician. There is something to be said for taking what a great playwright has written, no matter how farcical or fictional it may seem on paper, and manipulating the escapist mind to expose a truth that lies dormant in that script. Every script, I think, holds a truth and it is my delight as the actor to be able to bring the words to life on the stage, to spark that third dimension and let the truth be revealed through the acting. Since I always loved to write, acting gave me the next step to achieving every escapist’s fantasy, which is to be somewhere and someone else for a brief time.
Call it ironic that one who claims to be so proud of who she is would ever wish to be someone else at all. Contradictory, one might say. But the truth of the matter is that I am a product of a childhood filled with both love and conflict. I am still a broken person, no matter how many years try to stitch their way over the pain. No matter how grounded I may be as an educated English girl who loves Star Trek and Theatre Arts, who strives to serve her country in the Armed Forces, who speaks up and out against social injustice, who jumps at every opportunity to learn something new, and who never lets a dry leaf go uncrunched, I am still lost. I am still searching for the love that was lost in that fire twelve years ago. I still curl up at night wondering what my life would have been like had my parents stayed together and thinking how different everything might be now. Every fourth of April is a mark of another anniversary year that goes by uncelebrated by my mother and father.
And yet, I continue to wake up and expect greatness of those around me, as well as of myself. I stand in strength with the knowledge that, while some things are impossible, others are not. I keep my eyes on the road ahead of me, even when it seems like all I want to do is to turn back and blame every failure or obstacle on the past, because G-d knows how easy it is to spiral into that black hole. I have been there and I am not going back. I am learning day by day that I am capable of more than merely writing an essay or jogging a mile. Sentience is more than simply thinking, as Descartes once postulated. Sentience is aspiring to always be something and someone more than what we are but not less than who we are.
I am pushing myself to be more than what I am, but not less than who I am, and that is a beautiful, beautiful young woman, both on the inside and out. My commitment to the military has reaffirmed the values I was raised to appreciate and live by, including but not limited to loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honour, integrity and personal courage. I have gained a new level of confidence during my time in the Army that I have spent learning how to be an effective, effectual Linguist. I am a better communicator because of my desire to better myself as a communicator, if that makes any sense (it the Gertrude Stein sort of way, I imagine).
Moreover, I am a voice and mind of my own who is always ready to face the challenges, to play Devil’s advocate when the argument becomes tedious, and if, at the end of the day, I can honestly say that I have brought a little joy into another person’s life, then I am truly happy. Then, I feel that much closer to home.
