From books to experience

There is a house, one enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?

A school.

-the ancient Sumerians.

I began my university experience a bit later than most north Americans. I was 22 when I enrolled at a local community college on the foothills of the Rockies. I was fresh off the boat too. No,  not as a first time immigrant in a new land (that would happen for my Masters), but fresh off the boat in a sense that I had just returned from an overseas trip.

I spent my 21^st birthday not in a bar drinking but on the beaches of Split, Croatia (this was before the drinking started). Why did I go to Split? Well because at the time I was living in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina working as a conversation English teacher. I was twenty years old when I moved to the Balkans, and also a newlywed. Why? Because I had no intention on going to university and I wanted to see the world. Before Bosnia I had traveled from France to China, but Sarajevo was the longest I was living in a land that was not my own. And you know what? It was awesome!

I really love the pressure of living/existing in a foreign place. It makes life richer you know? Almost like the difference been 1% milk and heavy cream. But it’s also hard, the stretching and the pulling of my comfort zone is unpleasant. But if you do it in your twenties, it feels less overwhelming.

Sarajevo was my first experience living in a country that did not have a Judeo-Christian background, and I am so glad I did. Before Sarajevo I have never heard the Adhan. During my time there I heard it five times a day for 365 days. Before Sarajevo I had never gone to Mosque. During Ramadan that year a neighbor took me to the small, white, local mosque for prayers. I covered my head, went inside but did not participate for two reasons. One, at the time I was religious as a practicing Christian, so I wasn’t going to pray in a way that was not familiar to me. Also, two: I had no idea what I was doing.

I spent a year in Sarajevo, a year that was transformative for my twenties and thirties. While I was there, I decided that I wanted to pursue higher education. Fast forward three years I found myself sitting in an intro to Islam class taught by a Bosnian professor (In North America) who had a home a kilometer from where I stayed in Sarajevo! Truth is really stranger than fiction.

Now I am approaching my forties, it seems like that life has left me. I am no longer in Academia and am working as a doula. It was really hard to give up my academic dream but now I share space with people I love and fit in with much more than ever before in my life. Queer doulas, earthy doulas, birth doulas, and hippie doulas. We’re a radical bunch and it seems scary to say, but I think I’ve found my people.