Anywhere

I had a professor at Fort Lewis college who, at one time, was my role model.  Her name was Josianne Peltier.  She was a spunky and wise 57 year old woman who arrived at the school around the same time I did.  My luck was incredible.  I couldn't have gotten a more appropriate language professor.  She was from France and had taught a wide range of subjects in universities around the world including Harvard.  Her resume must have been ten pages long with a list of subjects she had taught extending from level 1 French to Women's Literature taught to students in Japan.  In my eyes, she was the perfect example of who I aspired to be; independent, adventuresome, brilliant, courageous, worldly and an amazing leader.  How could you ask for anything more from a professor and role model?

It was because of Josianne that I ended up spending my year teaching in Luxeuil les Bains France.  She was the one who had handed me the application to the teacher's assistant program and written my recommendation.  I would spend hours in her office discussing my senior dissertation over a cup of coffee.  We spoke in French about all of her travels and my dreams of doing the same.  As she spoke of tiny villages in Japan and Finland, I pictured myself in her shoes; speaking 8 different languages, adapting to any culture that surrounded me and educating students with the knowledge I was slowly acquiring.  After I left Fort Lewis, I started out on my path to become Josianne Peltier.

After one year of teaching in France and five months teaching in Chile, I decided I wanted to get a master's in French.  For my application to CU Boulder's Masters program, I had to get teacher recommendations from my undergrad professors.  Josianne was literally the only professor I had taken French classes from and, as a French major, I had taken a lot of French classes.  I knew that she was going to have to be the one to write my recommendation.  Tracking her down was the hardest thing I have ever done.  I called Fort Lewis and they had no record of where she currently was.  The last place she had gone was Arizona.  I called the school in Arizona and they said she had left already and they weren't sure where she had gone.  I called one of my old class mates who had tried to stay in contact with her and she said the last she knew Josianne was in Arizona but that she had talked about moving back to Finland.  I finally found her at a private university in Finland and sent her an email asking for my recommendation.  She replied three weeks later asking for a photo, because she couldn't remember who I was.

I had called another professor for a recommendation, who I had only taken one course with, Bob Brooks.  He had moved on to a different school as well, but he immediately remembered who I was and specific details about how I had performed in his course.  Josianne, who I had spent two years with in at least two of her courses per semester, couldn't put a face to my name.   This is when it dawned on me.  Josianne was independent, courageous, adventuresome, worldly and brilliant, but she lacked something very crucial to personal growth; connection.  She had spent so long searching for her next destination that she forgot to embrace where she was.  Moving on became second nature, and although she could easily adapt to every location she moved to, she never actually connected anywhere.

Travelers who get the insatiable bug that pushes them to keep moving may discover some incredible places, but they may move too fast to make lasting connections with any of them.  I was guilty of being in one place while looking out the window towards anywhere else I could be next.  The drive to discover pulled me forward through my endless list of new destinations.  When we move too quickly, we miss out on the deeper connections in life;  the friendships that blossom with age, the trust that develops from security, the family that forms from community and the opportunities that appear with time.  Discovering new locations is incredible, but becoming acquainted with the deeper side of one location enriches life on a whole new level.