Dear Shelby Davis,
The year starts with painting faces, banging pots and pans, blowing the conch, and shyly greeting the next year group. What is to be said in an introduction? Eventually we tire of “Hello, my name is ___ and I am from __”. The question morphs into “What house are you in?” followed by “What service are you doing?” It is already a year of questions, and while the small talk gets stale we all know it is the roots of something special. The only thing we have in common is a renewed sense of optimism in the form of Moroccan sweets, Latino hugs, and the singing of the World Cup song. It’s hard to accurately translate a single emotion.
It’s even harder when the mind is flooded with not a single emotion, but a cacophony of whirling contradiction, oxymoron, and confusion. The beauty of emotional confusion is that of a Pollack painting in constant motion, shapes solidifying and disappearing, colors mixing, perspective skewed, and chaos. Hence, my attempts to pin my inner emotional self to this word document are bound to failure. The beauty of how I feel is the very fact that I cannot label it. It doesn’t fit into a neat little box. It can’t be wrapped in words and thrown succinctly down on paper. I have spent the majority of my conscious life putting things in boxes, from my emotional experiences to the people around me. I have been incapable of just accepting that some things do not belong in boxes, that when confined certain things die.
I realized this year, suspended across the Atlantic Ocean, that I am lost. For the first time, I am glad. I can already feel the effects of my UWC experience echoing around me. Hope reverberating off the castle walls and penetrating my skull. Values of education snug in my pocket, a familiar friend. Passion alights in eyes of my peers. Fear firmly lodged between our lungs. With deeps breaths we exhale change, as vital to us as the air we breathe. Clasped hands signify family. All our smiles are the same, acting as mirrors because we care, contagious in their very nature. Laughing, because we laugh to survive. I am lost, but never alone.
A lot has changed since I wrote to you last year. I lost faith in the United World College mission and movement and looked at our world through a pessimistic lens. My faith was restored and it was stronger than ever after volunteering at a United World College reunion. I saw people who were living my dream, our dream, the UWC dream. It is possible for one person to make the difference-just like you have made the difference in my life. I realized that optimism, a dream for the future, a hope is not something naïve or childish. Optimism for change is not an involuntary state of mind; optimism is a choice. This year has shown me that I must choose to be hopeful for the future and to strive to make my difference. I choose to look at the problems with a positive outlook. There is no purpose in throwing up our hands at the impossibility of peace, instead we must work with our own two hands, make the world a better place. Whether we help in community gardens, work on urban planning or negotiate treaties with foreign nations, we all will do something to help our home.
At Atlantic College I was provided with a unique perspective on how America is viewed by the world’s upcoming generation. I believe we have an obligation, a role, and the ability to engage more equitably on the global stage. With each new challenge I go in with the mindset that if it doesn’t say I can’t, I can. It's surprising how often that “no” can transform into a “yes” with the right approach. And while my time here will end in a short two months, my UWC experience will live on. When the disaster hit Japan this past week, the support the college showed towards the Japanese students was uniting in its fervor. No one here stands alone; we stand together. Next year, I will return to United States and start over again. Service will be a necessity for me next year, as will the atmosphere of my international peers.
Yet I am still lost, I do not know what my future contains. There is comfort in this uncertainty. Maybe I will become a teacher and inspire those around me. Maybe I will join the Foreign Service and represent America as we strive for a sustainable future. Maybe I will work for an NGO, throwing myself into the joy of helping others. But no matter what I do, I will carry the elements of the United World College movement with me. This is not a duty, but a choice. A choice I am happy to make. I wish I could make you understand the enormity of the gift you’ve given me.
By giving me this opportunity, you’ve touched not only my life, but also the life of everyone I know and the lives of the people I will touch in the future. You provided the kinetic energy to get my journey started, and now that I’ve started, I won’t stop. United World Colleges have shaped my view of the world, and the view is different this end of the kaleidoscope. These words come to mind,
Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth
‘You owe me’
Look what happens with a love like that
It lights up the sky.
The year will end with goodbye hands, salty faces, and big dreams. My story will continue in search of where the imagination and action intersect. I want to tell the stories of people who think differently and see how their reality is reflected. The smaller voices in society will use me as a medium to be heard, and with the chorus of so many voices I can make the difference. The challenge is now this, to take an idea that starts in the sky and stretch it down to the ground. I see no limits, and the smile the envelopes my face speaks volumes.
Thank you for everything,
Valerie Cleland
United World College of the Atlantic 2011
