What A Privilege
We’ve been back from Italy for three days, and it feels like the program was weeks ago. Anyone who travels, near or far, knows that life doesn’t stop back home. For one, I returned to an electrical problem which turned off the power to my refrigerator at some point during the two weeks I was gone.
Note to self: It’s ok to throw away those overripe bananas instead of freezing them. You’re not going to make banana bread. You don’t even like banana bread.
Something I had forgotten since the last time I led a study abroad program is that there is no rest. And the students have way more energy than I do. Still, I’m proud of our 17,000 steps per day on average. That said, the past three days have consisted of submitting a grant proposal I’ve been working on for weeks, submitting reports due soon, and catching up on email (a lifelong endeavor). I haven’t really had time to stop and think through our experience and growth. I may not actually write more about it and let the students do the talking in their evaluations. I may keep thinking for longer than three days. Some reflections deserve more time.
But, after hate watching the newest episode of And Just Like That tonight (GOOD RIDDANCE, AIDAN), I’ve found myself with a little time, and a little less jet lag, to sit down with my computer. Tonight I reflect on privilege and gratitude.
What a privilege to be tired from walking, when so many people do not have ease of movement. I thought of my Dad so many times when we were climbing stairs in Sorrento and Rome, thinking how he never saw those cities but even after his retirement, he couldn’t have walked them - not comfortably. He definitely would have complained while also making the guides laugh. How many places are still inaccessible, and how often do we overlook them until we are confronted with them personally?
What a privilege to realize how connected we are. Not because the world is small, but because stories and people find ways to intersect across generations and borders. At a wine window in Florence, we met a man whose parents live in Oxford, and whose grandmother started the first study abroad program in the 1970s at UM. Our resident archivist, now 81, has saved every international-related newspaper article since she started at UM. One article from the student paper rang a bell. In our summer clean out this year, it was shared with me. As it turns out, I had it on my phone, AirDropped it to him, and he exclaimed, “That’s my grandmother!” Now he has the same story to share with his family. These serendipities remind me how connection lives in the details, though access to these stories is often shaped by who gets to travel, and who gets to tell. We are connected by proximity, by experience, by shared joys or mirrored pain, though that pain is never equally distributed. Still, there is something about empathy that expands your heart and reminds you how to love people, even when you say you don’t.
What a privilege to care deeply about our students' safety, not because danger is everywhere, but because trust is something we carry with us. The weight of responsibility travels too. To be the heavy when talking about the Lion’s Fountain and watching your drink like you would anywhere else. To carry Advil and bandaids and Pepto and Neosporin, all of which came in handy.
What a privilege to indulge in a little joy through new dresses, even as I recognize the economic ease that allows it. And yes, the saldi helped.
What a privilege to dip yourself in the ocean, into sapphire blue water like you’ve never seen before. To jump from cliffs high above and fall deeper than you ever thought you would. To come to the surface as if new, if only for a moment.
What a privilege to eat. And choose to share a bottle of wine with three colleagues turned friends.
What a privilege to be present and slow with each other, to talk, not about work, but about our struggles and joys. Coming to know others beyond transaction. Living with patience and care.
What a privilege to learn in spaces far from home, supported by an institution, with a responsibility not to take more than we give. To stand in the shadows of structures you’ve only read about in books or seen on a screen and listen to people who live it every day. I want this for every person in the world, but we can start with every student on our campus.
And what a privilege to return to a home, four walls that protect me and keep me until I leave again to see something new. Even if it might electrocute me before I fly out again.
But, I’ll probably write up some additional words about the students and the program, with some photos too. After all, Sherry is bored. (IYKYK)