Author: ebustama
Beyond the Garden: Albert Kahn
Whenever I am in the city, I like to think I can reach my home by just getting in my car and driving off. While in France, I have found it difficult to be able to imagine myself not being surrounded by buildings, not being able to see more than down a perfect street with no buildings for at least a mile in front of me, but that is not the reality of Paris unless I travel away from the city. Maybe it is the fact I grew up in a city where there are many open spaces with high and low points, with no buildings that are next to each other covering up what is around me. Paris denies me the feel of the outside world beyond the limitations of buildings and trapped open spaces with seemingly happy people. Am I the fake person coming to Paris? Are we happy in the US or do I confide in the unfamiliarity of this new place I never expected to visit? The Albert Khan Garden: open and yet surrounded by the city. Most people can think beyond the line of reality and imagine themselves being in a limitless space because it is green. Even the buildings have limits and so does the mind. I can’t imagine what the rest does, I was still surrounded by buildings. Let me close my mind, breathe in, think, and imagine. I am in a garden, and it is limitless to an otherwise limited mind. Connections in my head and connections of people are happening everywhere around us with or without our consent. I am as limited as I let myself be, and the only enemy is the mind.
Why did you come to the Albert Kahn Garden?
Anna: We came because we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. I’m from France and he’s from Italy. (Lorenzo with a vape in hand) We met a couple of years ago but we meet up
What languages do you know?
We both know English, but I know French and a little bit of Spanish. Lorenzo obviously knows Italian but also studies other languages. Lorenzo: I know a little bit of French too but I find English to be the main language that everyone seems to know.
Anna and Lorenzo remind me that a lot of these places serve a purpose far beyond the intended use. Yes, it is a garden and as I have mentioned, it may be used to feel like an escape from reality of the city outside of or become something greater. However, this space serves more than a visiting site but to unite people to do an activity. We can communicate through many mediums and this garden serves as one. Everything has meaning if we give it one and I believe everything has a greater purpose than what it is meant to have.
Maybe not too personal essay
Who I am is determined by all the things that led up to this exact point. When I wake up, I am the same person plus one more day ahead of me and one less day behind me. Where, does not matter, I am the same person, and I am determined to change over time. Why does change come by slowly and not at the pace I want. I learned that sometimes wherever you run off to, mood swings like a pedestal (at least for me) most things are not as satisfactory as they should be. A missing factor is Kessly’s “highs and lows,” I feel like I am usually on a low and can’t seem to get out of it. Although I had never been to France and I had just arrived from Spain, I felt like I wanted to go home and have tacos. Familiarity is my comfort more than it is for others, but I am trying to extend myself to achieve unfamiliarity as much as I can flex my not so lumber mind. The world of social anxiety makes me believe that I cannot exist with others around me without thinking that they are against me, what do people think when they see me? Do my peers from St. Edward’s like me or do we have to click because we are in a controlled environment. The controlled environment being the same classroom, same teachers, same school, same language, and the difference is that I am me and they are them. We may come from the same university and the same country but that does not mean I will resonate with my peers, at least not all of them. If there is one thing I learned while being in France is that we are rude in the United States at least when it comes to greeting and acknowledging people who are doing us a service. In the US we are used to not saying a word, ordering and getting our requested items and leaving without having to interact with a hello and goodbye. We do not like to talk or have a long dialogue with service workers unless we reach out. France is the opposite and I appreciate them paying their servers minimum wage and not work for tips. Many culture shocks and ways that I feel the United States lacks in humanity and compassion for others, we do not like to help when we can, we do not like inconvenience, we are known to be loud and rowdy, we are not nice, and we are rather judgmental of other cultures. Their transportation system is something that I envy about France because we are forced to drive to places and nothing is in favor for public transportation or walking. One can try to do any of these things but it would be unlikely and illogical. The experience as a whole just backed the idea that no, the United States of America is not the greatest country in the world and lacks a lot of features that European countries have.
Mind wonder
I have been to flea markets since I was a child with my parents on the weekends. I remember waking up very early and wondering how early the small shop owners would wake up at. I don’t know if these shop owners depended on their shops for their livelihood, but it was only a weekend thing Saturday and Sunday. Back home I would wander around and look at all the stands, shops, and things being sold on the back of trucks. Being at a flea market so early was a bit of a drag but being there a couple of hours and walking around aimlessly made it fun.
While being in the flea market I was reminded of the flea markets back home, beyond the language barrier and being in a different country I think the fundamentals may be the same. Livelihood may come in different shapes and sizes, different products, sometimes repetitive, and does uncover a truth underneath. A community relies on things that we can’t see, the sense of being able to join a space to sell and interact with locals is just another way of learning. We may be thousands of miles away from home but there are similarities here with the people even if they are from different countries. This market is not just about selling products or food but sharing culture and language with a mix of human behavior. I may walk around and find the same products, but the people are different, and they all have different stories to tell, and it takes time and a matter of asking where they are from. There has always been an idea that saddens me when I see faces around me, I will never get to know everyone in this world even if I tried. Time limits me to my own string of life. This market will most likely exist far into the future creating more connections. I might be connected to someone in the market down the line of a friend of a friend, but I will never know.
This market alone is a small version of what a city is like, people selling items, people buying, people living and people just looking and the world going on around them.
Andrea Cardenas
Andrea is going to be a senior next year at St. Edward’s University, she is interested in film, TV, and media. She is from Laredo, Texas where she usually resides with her parents when she is not in school and her sister who lives apart from the family. Andrea is a very bubbly and energetic person.
Q: Who or what is the most important thing to you?
A: family
Q: Who do you think of first when you think of love? What do you love about them? What have they done?
A: My parents, my mom and dad… I have always been close to my parents, like really close. I have an older sister but she was kind of always had a boyfriend and always out of the house. I was the baby of the family so I always did everything with them. They have done a lot, everything, and I grew up privileged and grateful to have had that life, I don’t know… I’ve just had a good life.
Q: How do you calm yourself down when you’re upset?
A: Probably just listen to music, I don’t really get angry easily or like grumpy or anything, but if I’m feeling more like sad more so than upset I listen to sad music.
Q: Where do you think happiness comes from? Have you felt happy being here? (Paris) Have you felt sad?
A: I guess when I am at my most comfortable, wether that be in the environment that I am in but usually more the people I am surrounded with such as my friends and family. Doing something I like… just doing nothing, I like to do nothing. Yes I am happy. Sad things include my luggage, and then two days ago when I left the group and ditched ya’ll when you all went to the Eiffel Tower, I said I’m gonna go to my room and sit down and do nothing and then I’m going to be like “I have no friends and everything hates me.”
Q: If you could create a perfect world what would it include? Why do you think people hate so much?
A: I would include less hate for everybody… less difficult circumstances for people, for people to live happily with life… I know that’s not possible but yeah. Utopia if possible. I think people are uncomfortable when people are different from them and sometimes people don’t know how to deal with that, that’s not me saying that racism is justified but I think people don’t know how to be with people who are not similar to them. They don’t like that.
Q: What is something that makes you uncomfortable? What is your greatest fear?
A: When I am in an environment where I feel overwhelmed, I just feel uncomfortable, and I just don’t like… I have to take myself out of that situation. Sensory overload and I need to chill. My greatest fear… like a stupid one is being upside down or being under water, I don’t like it very much. Like being under water and upside down is like a nightmare, like doing a flip underwater, that’s an actual nightmare. My big fear is being alone… yeah, not being understood.
Q: Who is your greatest bully?
A: Myself, yeah… I am very insecure, I always tell myself things that are not true and I have to tell myself those things are not true and I am always making assumptions for people. I’m just like “don’t that’s you not them, I don’t know what people are thinking”
Q: Hardest thing you have ever done? Hardest time in college?
A: I guess my freshmen year of High School I had a really hard time and that period of time was hard but I got through it. In college it was the first few weeks I moved out I moved from town and I did not see my family… you know coming from a close knit family. Getting used to like the first few weeks I was like I want to die I don’t want to be here, I hate this school and I hate everyone. I was like no one gets me but then sure enough you just make friends and I really like St. Edward’s now
Q: Who’s your best friend?
A: My best friend is, I’ll say two, Priscilla she is my roommate and BFF and I met her at St. Ed’s and my other BFF is Hannah Lauren and I have known her since Laredo and we reconnected in college. All of us are friends and we’re moving together next august, the three of us… and my parents.
Q: Did you make friends High School that you thought were meaningful?
A: I did and I still have a few friends who are from Laredo but I don’t know, I just kind of moved and I felt like the friendships that did not sustain were not meant to be. I don’t know I was just fine with that. I was kind of excited to get away (from her hometown) I was kind of a floater in high school… just there.
Q: What is an assumption you fear people will make about you?
A: Like basic or boring. When I first met people at St. Ed’s all of them were like “Oh I never expected you to be like that or act like that” or “wow just based on appearance I never expected you to be like that.” I always tell my friend that I am such a contradiction, I won’t elaborate, but I am a contradiction.