Greece—Athens + Hydra

the value of new contexts…

When I attended college in West Texas we studied Ancient Greece during my Art History courses. I honestly never thought I’d have a chance to see any of what we looked at in person—my mindset at the time wasn’t capable of allowing it. I suspect it was because my perception of what it meant to “travel” at that time had been very limited (this was the case with the majority of my peers as well). It wasn’t until my undergraduate Graphic Design professor (hi Bob!) suggested I look into the University of Tennessee for graduate school because of their opportunities to work in a letterpress studio. I didn’t know anyone in the state of Tennessee—I did know I really wanted to learn Letterpress. I had no idea what I was doing when I applied, was accepted, and agreed to move. The real weight of my decision (leaving family, friends, etc.) didn’t hit me until about one week before my move because I was so naive. It wasn’t so much the roughly 1,200 miles of distance between cities in Texas and Tennessee that changed my mindset on travel—it was the complete and total destruction and re-construction of my physical and emotional comfort zones that did it. It took a solid 1/2 year of feeling sorry for myself in Tennessee until I started realizing the deep value in the leap I had made. A lot of folks would say moving from Texas to Tennessee isn’t that big of a deal, but at my young age coupled with extreme lack of experience and general ignorance it was a major deal! People in other places do things differently—and there is so much that can be learned from that. I came to understand this through my own process of re-learning how to live and work in a new context—initially in Tennessee, but since in other locations—each move its own unique growth experience—these experiences are generally both difficult and exciting at the same time.

After that move for graduate school, the notion of continuing to build my experience library through travel or taking advantage of great relocation opportunities became essential. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to have had in-person experiences like this trip to Greece. I was inspired by how enthusiastic Athenians we spoke to were about their city and surrounding islands—the cuisine, culture, texture, history, etc…I was also embarrassed to not have the appropriate language skills as an outsider to communicate in Greek, but once again almost everyone we met was bi-lingual (or more). None-the-less, we were made to feel incredibly welcome everywhere we went and encouraged when we did try to speak. This has been the case time and time again as we travel more and now live outside of the United States.

Over the past decade I’ve had conversations with many students contemplating big moves or major life-changing experiences as a design educator. It’s hard for me not to time warp back to that time I left Texas long-term for the first time with zero experience. I usually begin the convo by asking if they can clearly identify the combo of emotions about the upcoming change they feel most often: discomfort coupled with excitement or discomfort coupled with dread? It’s no solution, but generally if the compass is clearly pointed more towards excitement it’s something worth really un-packing.