Memoirs - My Story

My World Lit classes (grades 11-12) wrote memoirs this month - one reflecting on an adult's influence in their lives, and another based on an interview with that adult. It's my second time assigning this project, and both times I've been fascinated by the stories that have emerged from it.

When I assigned it a few years ago, I did the project alongside my students to give them an example. Revisiting it this month, it brought back some sweet memories, and so I've decided to post it here. Hopefully I can get students' permission to post a few excerpts from theirs as well soon.

Here's my story about my dad's influence on me:

Cake and Community

“Do some things that surprise you.”  My dad’s words echoed in my brain as I turned from my parents and walked through security to board the plane to Germany.  I was twenty-one years old and on my way to Europe, alone, for the summer.  After 9 years of German courses, I was pretty sure I had the language skills I needed to make it on my own there.  I was less convinced about other skills – hadn’t a major housing problem come up just days earlier? 

My dad gave me the courage to brave this solo trip.  He’s always loved meeting internationals and learning their stories, fearlessly diving into new cultures, experiencing something surprising and different.  I was mortified the time he went up to strangers at IHOP: “Are you Russian?  I could tell by your lime-green shoes.”  (They were indeed – not Russian, but Ukrainian.)  We even lived in Germany for his job when I was a baby, and my parents’ passion for German became mine too as I grew older. 

Though I’m naturally shy and careful, my dad has always pushed me to take risks.  When I was young, he made me call my friends to invite them over myself, even though I was quite self-conscious on the phone.  He once took me and my little sister to an amusement park, where I found one or two safer roller coasters I liked.  He took her on the one that went upside-down and backwards, talking it up until I felt left out and decided to join them.  I loved it! 

In college, he insisted I work as a waitress to gain confidence in handling stress and talking with strangers.  He’s the one who encouraged me to design my own trip in place of the expensive and easy Penn State summer programs, using his and my mom’s European connections so I could immerse myself in German language and culture.  “Don’t stress about planning every detail,” he told me.  “You’ll figure it out.”  Now, here I was over the Atlantic Ocean, hoping he was right. 

                I started with three weeks in idyllic Innsbruck, Austria, where my mom had once spent four years.  It was my second visit there, and I felt instantly at home in the close-knit community of my mom’s old friends and their children, attending church with them and volunteering at a local school.  I longed to stay and pretend I was one of them, and yet I felt called to the unknown that awaited me in Germany. 

Flat, drab, lifeless.  Even the thunderstorms were subdued.  Those were my first impressions in Neufahrn, the tiny suburb of Munich where I was staying and working for the next two months.  I could walk in any direction and hit cornfields within five minutes. 

I was working for my dad’s engineering company, staying in a guesthouse for employees visiting from other branches, and later taking a German course.  But the guest house was 1 hour and a $20 subway ride from downtown, ruining my plan to find exciting cultural activities and Christian community.  I was the only girl and the youngest one at the guest house.  The men there were stressed from long working days and too tired to socialize, so everyone retreated into their rooms immediately upon returning home from work.  At work, assignments were monotonous and sparse. 

Forget community.  Wherever I went – work, home, around town – I felt utterly alone.  How would I learn German if I didn’t even know anyone to talk to?

“Do some things that surprise you.”  I was going crazy in the silence, and I couldn’t give up on my dreams for an amazing summer.  If there was a way to create community in this stiflingly isolated village, I was going to find it. 

The answer began in baking, a favorite passion of mine.  I hunted down the ingredients for yellow cake at the grocery store.  When I couldn’t find a cake pan, I used the frying pan instead, praying the handle wouldn’t melt in the oven.  I hesitantly knocked at my housemates’ rooms: “Would you like some cake?  It’s American, so it might be sweeter than you’re used to.”  One of them, who most intimidated me, nearly fell over in shock.  That one piece of cake broke through his reserve.  He became much warmer toward me, showing me photos of his daughters and initiating more cooking experiments. 

There was a frail white-haired woman across the street on her porch most evenings, who smiled and said hello as I walked or jogged by.  I’d almost given up on meeting her for real, when she noticed my accent one day and asked where I was from.  I found myself sitting in her living room with thick, deep red carpet and flowery chairs, listening to her stories about farm life before World War II and her confidence in God’s goodness even as cancer was consuming her body. 

I’d heard about a Christian student group in Munich, and I made the trek downtown to their meeting, knowing no one in the room but starting conversations anyway.  I remember them commenting, “Wow, you seem so outgoing.”  If only they’d known me ten years earlier, too shy to call and invite my best friend over.  I guess my dad’s effervescent personality had rubbed off on me more than I thought – at least to make me good at faking it!  I found myself agreeing to go on a boating trip with them the next Saturday, though I was terrified of looking like an idiot.  Later I joined them at the movies, a carnival, and a Euro Cup party.

When I got stuck in a useless German class, I wanted to let it go and hope the course improved. But, with my dad’s voice in my ears, I boldly spoke to the teacher about it.  I gained permission to move up a level, where I found both mental stimulation and intriguing, friendly classmates. 

                I didn’t expect to carry the weight of initiating 100% of my friendships in Germany.  It was hard, as the newcomer and the non-native speaker, to make the first move and welcome people into a community of my own making.  But in a sense, my dad had spent years training me for that summer.  Each time he embarrassed me with another international, he was showing me, “Sometimes it’s better to look foolish than to stay isolated.”  Sometimes it pays to break the status quo, to take risks, because they bring a richness to life.  I surprised myself that summer, but looking back, I think it was a natural result of becoming my father’s daughter.