When I was six or seven, I came home after a day of arts and crafts, eager to present my mother with a necklace I had fashioned out of globular clay shapes of varying colors and sizes. Holding the masterpiece in my tiny hands, my mother lifted it delicately and responded “pas mal,” her turn of phrase translated from French to suggest a level of scrutiny and severity a first grader could not be prepared to comprehend. It was not until sixth grade, when I started a French club dedicated to teaching songs about the alphabet and noshing on Petit Ecolier cookies, that I recognized that same “pas mal” sentiment within myself. I had inherited many things from my mother- impatience, a strong work ethic, an unflinching ability to spew French expletives.
Her “I can’t get no, sa-tis-fac-tion” attitude was the most prevalent of her qualities to rub off on me.
I pushed the members of that club, 11-year-olds who had never spoken French before, to pronounce the throaty r’s and articulate the difference between u’s and q’s, with aggravating persistence. I could not settle for a sub-standard effort, and lost several members of my club in the process. The short-lived French club left a mark because all at once, I knew that for me, “not bad” would never do.
What I didn’t immediately recognize was that this constructive dissatisfaction I had seemingly inherited was an innate reaction to a process of uprooting and relocating that saw my family move away from our homeland.
I have always had a great deal of pride to be Algerian. Yet, I experienced dissatisfaction when stating that I was Algerian because I felt that my homeland was not really mine to live in or see, but rather one I had learned to love through stories my parents told, woven inextricably into my mind as if they were my own. I felt dépaysée in America, out of my element and unhinged from my roots. Indeed, living in America meant learning English rather than Algerian, practicing a less disciplined version of Islam, and limiting the things I had in common with my family in Algeria. I did not have the sense of community that comes with proximity to family, and as a result of this absence I constructed my own communities.
The first of these self-directed communities sprouted on an organic farm in the hills of Switzerland, where I spent my summer after high school doing social work through the U.N. Bent over in the sun for hours, de-weeding potatoes with the other volunteers, made me keenly aware of the power of empathy and communication in teamwork. Having consciously chosen to burst my own little bubble and challenge all my assumptions and habits, I gained not only a new perspective, but also new friends from Russia and Brazil. Though we all dispersed from that idyllic farm to our respective homes, I felt I had found the sense of community I was looking for, and also something more: I saw myself for the first time as a girl who chose risk over comfort and enjoyed being unhinged from her roots.
My first significant leadership experience exploited all the values I had plucked from my time on that Swiss farm. As the course leader of a public service seminar I designed and taught in college, I started every class with icebreakers and funny YouTube clips to instill comfort and liveliness among my students. I scheduled time for us to spend mundanely weighing rice and filling bags at the local Food Bank- where we stayed until every grain of rice was packaged- in order to illustrate how one person’s efforts (or lack thereof) affected others. This group became my community, constructed with the same values I imagined I would have naturally internalized had I not been dépaysée: empathy, trust, comfort, liveliness, sharing and listening. Though this community was built rather than inherited, it felt equally organic.
Today, I naturally seek out risk and novelty, having grown up in 4 different countries and 4 states, unpacking my bags only to re-pack them 12 months later. Moving across oceans and continents has left an indelible footprint on my outlook: constant shifting of settings equates to constant restlessness of mind.
I often find myself awake at night, planning an escape from under my sheets. I cannot be satisfied unless I am engaged in pursuits that challenge my perspective. And whenever I feel myself enveloped in a bubble, I look for the nearest sharp object with which to rupture it.
