How Do We Know Who We Are?

I have been worrying about who we are as Americans these days. Are we the people drone killing random people all over the planet? Are we the people who are forcing death and destruction all over the planet with our GMO seeds? Are we the people who live under the whacky illusion that we have the best lives and best medicine and best schools in the world? Are we the people who cherish our god-given right to kill anyone who might be trying to steal our toaster oven? Yes we are.

But I hold myself aloof from that crap. I help people. I celebrate differences. I carry guilt for the actions of my country. I educate myself. But my question today is: I know these mental constructs that I have grown through my life. But, are these illusions just as some of our ideas of America seem to be illusions?

How do I get to the core of me? At different times in my blog I have talked about my past. Today I was trying to remember moments from my childhood that were split second glimpses into who I am today.

The first moment that came to mind was the moment I learned to read. I can still see the classroom. I can see how the light was. I remember the page in the big book that we were looking at. We were learning the "sight see" method at that time. You didn't sound out words. You recognized them. Collectively we became fast readers and terrible spellers, a fact that is now of little worry because of spell check, but caused some real pain in the intervening years.

So, I was sitting on the right side of the classroom, near the windows about 5 rows back. I had on a plaid dress with a white collar so it must have been autumn. The teacher was very tall and had glasses on and a pointer in her hand. She was pointing to flip pages of a big book called "See Spot Run." and suddenly I was reading the lines before she pointed them out. I felt like I was home, not having known something was missing until I found it. I have never stopped reading. It is one of the most important parts of my life. Looking back I know that some part of me as a first grader knew that this was a big deal, a very big deal.

I have hardly ever had a conversation with a friend that hasn't included some talk about books. When I was approaching my first day of teaching at a Waldorf school, the thought that gave me momentary panic was "What do you talk about with people (the kids) who don't know how to read?" I did laugh at myself and quickly realized that "God, you dope, you teach them to read. AND you tell them stories in the meanwhile."

Congruent to my discovery of reading was the discovery that I loved to tell stories and I loved to have an audience. This nugget of self awareness led to many steps toward becoming or realizing or giving the nod to who I am.

Do you have a flash memory of seeing the acorn that would grow into the oak you are today?