It’s finally official! I am a student. This week completes my first week attending UAF as an Ethnobotany student. Thankfully, I am doing distance learning for this semester. Monday I was introduced to 14 other students as my children slept. Since we are currently in Missouri visiting my family, we are three hours ahead of what would have been an “easy” time slot, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM, just after dinner and before bedtime. However, we are now on the 8:30 PM to 10:30 schedule which can be a little more difficult in the coming weeks as 8 in bed and our youngest usually doesn’t fall asleep until almost 9. This week we were able to really wear the girls out so we could put them to bed an hour earlier! Is that really sustainable for the next 2-3 weeks we have left here? It is not impossible.

What is Ethnobotany you might be wondering? By definition it is the relationship between plants and people. But as I learned in my first class it is so much more. I did not realize I would be getting myself into a class that is very triggered with “social issues”. I am almost completely removed from news and current events, unfortunately and fortunately in my opinion, and so I was very shocked to hear the topics, language, structure and ideas of others. This is the college experience that I missed out on!!!! Now of course it can be very scary, very intimidating, and very humbling?….humiliating? nerve wracking? what is the word I am searching for? I feel very insecure. Not only did I not understand the very first class and course in itself, thinking only how plants benefit people and people benefit plants (if they choose to help) but not how plants play an important role in each culture, shaping where we are at today. This immediately made me feel like maybe I was in over my head seeing how I know almost nothing of what is going on in the outside world and I am without a doubt, just white. And by this, like I had mentioned in class during introductions, I don’t know what my culture and background is. It was incredible to me to see so many other people of different backgrounds then I and to hear about their lineage, their ancestors, and all the work that is being done and has been done in their families. These are people who were getting into a class because they KNOW what it is and they know where they want to go with it. I don’t know much about my lineage, my ancestors, let alone my very close family. My father’s mother died a few years ago and looking at her obituary was when I learned her middle name. I don’t know any of my great grandparents names, and I sure as hell don’t celebrate or follow any traditions. So what the hell is my “culture”?

It can be very defeating to have your history erased, even by your own people. My family had come to this country and changed their names or had them changed, just to fit in. I can look at my DNA and figure out that I’m from 51% England and Northwestern Europe, 11% Germanic Europe, 10% Northern Italy, 7% Norway, 7% The Balkans, 5% Southern Italy, 4% Scotland, 3% Sweden and Denmark, 1% Greece and Albania, and 1% Malta, but what does that mean? How can I connect with “my people” being so far removed from them? Everything is so muddled.

And celebrating “American” traditions seems so….empty and unfulfilling. Especially when there is so much negativity associated with it. I am so lucky to be born into this country and have the opportunities and blessings that I have, no doubt. I am very, very grateful. My idea of a tradition is not drinking myself into an oblivion, working over 40 hours for not enough money to sustain myself and then mindlessly watching a screen. There has to be more.

But I don’t want to see it as a negative. I am fully aware of the blessings that I believe God has given to me. The gift of the life that I have is more than I deserve and in no way do I feel sorry for myself. I feel inspired. I feel optimistic. And I feel insecure and shy and out of place. But this is how we grow. This is how we learn. We can’t stay comfortable always and think we will continue to be happy. I went to yoga teacher training. I know you have to push yourself to your edge, but not over the edge.

So I’m diving in. Even if the weather is in the 60’s here and all I want to do is play outside. I finished my homework early, and am jumpstarting the reading for next week. I’m looking deeper into myself and maybe I will learn more about my roots.