Category: Musings

Birthright Armenia, Musings

[Blog] Week Three, Exploring

Faith Hakimian

BIRTHRIGHTHEADER

As best I can tell, this week that just finished was probably a pretty good indication of what a normal week will look like. Well, normal aside from Thursday, which was Armenian Independence Day. And looking back, it was a really good week, even with the occasional hiccup.

But first, the excursion!

We spent all day Saturday visiting two monasteries, (Hovhannavank and Saghmosavank), the Armenian Alphabet Monument, the Gourmet Dourme handmade chocolate factory, and the Byurakan Observatory. If you compare that list to the one I posted last week, you may notice that this one has a couple of additional locations. It was a long, busy day, and I was exhausted by the end of it, but it was so much fun.

The monasteries were incredible and beautiful. The biggest parts of both were built in the 13th century, but the original basilica, was built in the early 4th century. Seventeen hundred years ago. Seventeen. Hundred. I got to stand and pray in the same place that Christians have been worshiping for the better part of two thousand years. And I’d keep going, but I don’t think words are going to do it justice, at least not in a blog post like this. Hopefully, I’ll fill in at least a few of the gaps with pictures.

Exterior of the original basilica at Hovhannavank
Exterior of Saghmosavank
View of Saghmosavank narthex ceiling
Hovhannavank
View from inside Hovhannavank narthex
Saghmosavank
Saghmosavank
Interior of Hovhannavank
Saghmosavank
Interior of Hovhannavank

 

There is one thing, though, that pictures aren’t going to help me share, and that’s what it was like to listen to the Little Singers of Armenia in both of the churches. The Little Singers, as you’ve probably guessed from their name, is an Armenian youth choir. They are incredibly beautiful singers who have sung all over the world, and getting to listen to them sing in the acoustics of both churches was extraordinary.

Between visiting the two monasteries, we stopped for a little while at the Armenian Alphabet monument. It consists of giant stone renditions of each of the letters in the Armenian alphabet, and was installed in 2005 to honor the 1600th anniversary of Mesrop Mashtots creation of the Armenian alphabet. It’s weirdly cool. Also, there was ice cream and I got to see a horse, and it’s hard to complain about that, either.

 

After that, it was the chocolate factory! I have a feeling that terminology is giving the wrong impression– I know I wasn’t quite sure of what to expect. It’s called Gourmet Dourme, dourme being the Armenian word for chocolate, and it’s actually pretty small; they make handmade, handwrapped gourmet chocolates using Belgian chocolate, and it’s not a huge industrial operation at all. It’s owned by two Armenian brothers who repatriated from France and Austria. We got samples, and it was just as amazing as you would expect it to be. Maybe moreso. It’s also really cool that this is one of the new things coming out of Armenia.

Our final stop was at the Byurakan Observatory. I believe the original plan was to visit the HAYP Pop Up Gallery that was setting up there, but we also had the option to tour the telescope, which several of us did instead. Unfortunately for those of us who still only have a basic grasp of Armenian, the tour was mostly conducted in Armenian, so I didn’t learn as much as I would have liked to, but we still got to see it and learn just a little bit about astronomy in this part of the world.

The telescope itself is about ten to fifteen minutes away on foot from the main entrance, and for those of you who played Myst, it felt a little bit like that, minus the bit about traveling through books. There was also a friendly dog who who followed us over and was just a generally amicable fellow. As for the more technical aspects, about all I remember/heard was that it is a 2.3 meter Cassegrain reflector, and while it’s not among the very largest anymore, it’s not tiny, either.

 

So, that was Saturday!

Monday marked the first day I went to the hospital to shadow, as well as the first day I had to get up there on my own. I went by marshrutka, and was very grateful that my first time taking one was on a day a bit less busy than normal. The marshrutkas are basically fifteen passenger vans, but on busy/normal days (like this past Tuesday), they are definitely standing room only.

Sadly, my stomach decided to go squirrelly after only an hour or so on Monday, so I actually ended up going home early and sleeping. Tuesday went much better, and I got to spend the whole day shadowing a very kind doctor who would translate for me when she was done with each patient so that I could follow what she was doing. I’m hoping that my Armenian continues to improve so that I can follow more on my own.

That’s all for this week! As always, thanks so much for reading about my adventures. To those of you who are also interested in seeing more fiction from me, I’m hoping to have the story I’ve been coaxing out word by word finished sometime next week, and I have another one that I’m hoping will be a bit easier to write coming shortly after that.

Until next time!

Birthright Armenia, Musings

[Blog] Week Two, Settling In

Faith Hakimian

BIRTHRIGHTHEADER

I can’t believe another week has already passed. By the time this post goes up I will have spent sixteen days in Yerevan, long enough for a bit of the novelty to have worn off (though I still haven’t gotten around by marshrutka– that’s an adventure for next week). It’s long enough for a bit of the homesickness to have worn off, too, though I suspect it’ll be around for another go sooner or later.

It’s been a good week. Busy, for sure, but definitely good. Monday was my last week of intensive language class, which feels a little bit like someone turned the hose off and is now waiting to see what happens when the bubbles die down. I’ll still have class twice a week, but for two hours at a stretch instead of six, and we’ll have a chance to get deeper into the grammar, which I’m really excited about.

Finishing the intensive class also means that I got to start volunteering this week, at least for the first of my two job placements. Specifically, I’m helping with content at Repat Armenia, a non-profit/NGO whose mission is to “inform, initiate and actively champion the return of high-impact (professional, entrepreneurial) individuals and families to Armenia to secure the future development of the Armenian nation.” It’s a fascinating place to work, and in just a few days I’ve learned more about the challenges facing Armenia than I’d realized there was to learn, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ll try to post more specifics later, but if there’s anything in particular that you’d like to know, please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer!

As for the second of my job placements, shadowing at the Nork Marash Medical Center, that starts on Monday. If I understood correctly when I met them last week, I’ll be shadowing in their cardiology department at first instead of their emergency department, but with the possibility of switching departments later. Either way, I am looking forward to it and can’t wait to see what happens.

And that’s about it for this week! Tomorrow there’s an excursion for the Birthright volunteers that will take us to tour a chocolate factory (yay!) and on a hike to a couple of old Armenian monasteries. Expect pictures next week! Until then, all the best!

Birthright Armenia, Musings

[Blog] Week One, Ups and Downs

Faith Hakimian

BIRTHRIGHTHEADER

This week has been full of what feels like a thousand ups and downs. A part of me has a hard time believing I’ve only been here for a little over seven days, because it feels like so much has already happened. Another part of me, just as big as the first, is still convinced that I’ve just gotten here. In a way, both of them are right.

Like I mentioned last week, Yerevan is truly a lovely city. There’s so much stone used in the architecture, and that same stone is often carved beautifully as well. Even when it’s not, the color is amazing and like nothing I’ve had the pleasure to see before, at least not all in the same place. The History Museum of Armenia is built out of pale, whitish stone. Much of the rest of Republic Square (Հանրապետություն Հրապարակ), including the main government building, uses reddish stone of several different shades. Another building, the Tufenkian Historic Yerevan Hotel is built mainly with a very dark stone, but its accent are a striking, russet color. As if that wasn’t enough, there are also parks everywhere. It’s absolutely incredible.

My ability with the language is improving by leaps and bounds, which is probably the coolest thing to me so far. When I got here, I could read most of the words I saw on signs all around– by which I mean I could sound them out without understanding them– but when it came to listening, I was lucky to pick out a word or two in every third sentence. Given that my host mom doesn’t speak English, this added a certain challenge to the first couple days, though her patience and kindness helped me begin to learn and recognize words even before I started the five day crash course offered by the Birthright program.

I should also mention (again?) that my wonderful cousin is in Yerevan as well, and having her here to show me the ropes has made everything so much easier than I believe it would have been otherwise. I don’t think I can overstate the effect of knowing that there’s someone in the city who already knows me and who I can ask for help should I need it. I know the Birthright staff are available and more than happy to support us all if necessary, but there’s nothing quite like family.

If I only talked about the good and the easy, though, I would not be doing justice to this experience. The hard parts are what will help me grow as a person, despite how frustrating they are now. Or perhaps more accurately, because of how frustrating they are now. If the discomfort these experiences cause is an indication of an area where I am weak (say, for example, being willing to make mistakes), then maybe that’s the first step in getting better. I may need someone to remind me of this four or five times a week.

So here’s a couple of the things that have proven the most difficult so far.

The first, unsurprisingly, is the language. And I know I listed it up above as well and counted it as one of the coolest things about being here. That’s true, of course, but it belongs down here as well. There have been a couple of times I’ve caught myself choosing not to do something because of the language barrier, and that doesn’t count all the times I’ve hesitated before choosing to do something after all. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how much of this is real and how much is perceived, either. Most people I’ve interacted with know far more English than I know Armenian, and are more than happy to use it. It’s just me annoyed with myself for not being able to speak the language.

The second is how tired I still am. As far as I can tell, the jetlag has worn off, and I’m not having any more trouble going to bed and getting up at decent hours than I did at home. If anything, it’s a little easier. That being said, I’m finding it far harder than I expected to get the writing done that I would like to. Even my minimum goal is proving hard to reach. For example, this blog is going up more than four hours later than I wanted it to. Also, my partially written short story that I wanted to finish this week is still only partially written, and not for lack of trying. I just haven’t had the energy to force it into existence like I might have back home. And despite the fact that it’s perfectly understandable and (hopefully!) a sign that I’m engaging with my new surroundings, it’s vexing and makes it hard not to feel like I’m just not trying hard enough.

On the bright side, I’m aware that both of these are good examples of a normal experience on an adventure like this. I may not feel like it right at the moment, but these are, in their own way, a good sign. It means I’m letting the country affect me. There’s a couple of cliches that apply here, I think. No pain, no gain, for one.

Also, today was a good day. A long day, and I was almost giddy every time I remembered it was Friday, but definitely a good day. It was the fourth day of my intensive language class, and I can feel it all starting to sink it. It’s getting easier to come out of my shell. I can truly say that I’m excited to be here.

I’m also truly excited to go to bed for the night, so I think I’d best sign off and wrap up this beast of a post before it gets any longer. Thank you all for following my adventure, and look forward to a new update (sometime) next Friday. To those of you interested in reading my short stories, I promise I’m still writing. I hesitate to give a definite time to expect the next one to go up, but it is coming and this weekend looks like it should be good for writing. Thanks for sticking with me!

Until next week!

Birthright Armenia, Musings

[Blog] Here I am in Armenia

Faith Hakimian

BIRTHRIGHTHEADER

By the time this post goes up (and assuming I’ve done my math right*), I will have been in Armenia for almost two full days. Which probably means that I will have cycled through at least five more complete sets of emotions in addition to all the ones I’ve already felt. I will also, I hope, be slightly less sleep deprived and more able to write coherently, but I’ll save that for next week’s blog. This week, I’ll just have to revel in all the giddy thoughts running through my head.

And “giddy” really is the best way to describe it. Giddy and a little fuzzy and not quite sure that this is all real and so very glad that it is. Between packing and good-byes and more packing** and then the actual travel, I haven’t had much time to stop in the last week. Now, though, it’s all taken care of. Or not, and the world didn’t end. I can stop and breathe and look around and grin like a maniac every time it hits me that I’m finally in Armenia. Quite literally on the other side of the world. Getting ready to learn and get involved and even just live.

It was around 1am when my plane landed in Yerevan, so I didn’t get to see much from the air beyond the pattern of the lights. I spent the trip to the home of my wonderful host family doing my best to sound out as many words in Armenian as possible as they flashed by outside the car window, which was simultaneously encouraging (I could recognize and even understand a few!) and faintly unnerving. For every word I could read, there were a hundred more I couldn’t. To say the least, I have a lot of work ahead.

And speaking of the language, it is, for me, a strange feeling to look around a busy street and know that a large percentage of the people all around won’t necessarily understand you. I’ve traveled only a little before this, and that was to the UK/Ireland. This is an entirely different ball of wax.

So far, it’s all been a lesson in humility as well. There’s so much of this I couldn’t have done (and won’t be able to do) on my own. Again, see note ** down below. But it’s more than that. It’s the cousin who encouraged me relentlessly to apply for the program and is helping me around the city now that I’m here. It’s my boss who reminded me until I listened that this is a “once in a lifetime” opportunity. It’s having to accept that right now, I need the help, because I don’t speak the language, don’t know the metro/bus systems, don’t know where to find anything or what to avoid. It’s having to recognize that in some ways, I’m about as self sufficient as a little kid.

And, weirdly enough, I’m okay with that. Most of the time.

That’s all I’ve got for now, save that Yerevan is a beautiful city, and I can’t wait until I’m awake enough to explore it. There will definitely be pictures, starting with a couple down below. A quick note: as you’ve probably already guessed, there won’t be a short story going up to this week, as my time got eaten by international travel. I do have one started, and I hope to be able to finish it over the weekend, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. Either way, it’s time for me to drag myself off to bed in the hopes of wounding the vile beast jet lag. Until later!

 

History Museum of Armenia

 

A view from Republic Square

 

 

* If I haven’t, I blame jet lag and entirely too many hours (about twenty) spent on planes. And if you point out that the two of those are basically the same thing… you’re right. I’ll blame that on the jet lag as well.

** I haven’t had to move for five years. To say I’m out of practice on packing would be a severe understatement. I would have been in a world of hurt were it not for everyone who helped me pack and move out and gave me a place to store everything that I didn’t take with me, and I’ll never be able to thank them all enough. Friends, if you are reading this, thank you so much. You saved me from myself.

Musings

[Blog] How I Learned To Write

Faith Hakimian

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My mom tells me that I began showing a definite interest in writing while I was still quite small. Some of my fuzziest memories involve a few pieces of paper either taped or stapled together in a simple binding and stored in an empty check box. They contained the various tales that my young self wanted to tell, and though I couldn’t tell you many details now, I do remember that I was particularly proud of one featuring a family of rabbits who lived in a burrow under a hill, and that my mom helped me with the illustrations.

I don’t believe I ever really stopped writing after that. There were hiatuses, certainly, and it’s only been recently that I’ve actually made good progress on actually finishing stories on a regular basis, but I never stepped completely away from it. I can trace a lot of that directly back to the unfailing support I got from my parents and my teachers. My mom gave gentle encouragement and countless books to read. My dad gave feedback and pointed out things that could be better. One teacher in particular let me do an independent study focused on creative writing during my senior year of high school– which basically meant that I ended up reading an anthology or two of short stories and got to get school credit for doing NaNoWriMo.

In an earlier post I waxed nostalgic on the effects online role-playing had on my literary impulses, so I don’t need to go into great depth on them again here. That being said, roughly four years of daily writing certainly played a part as well, though personal projects tended to fall by the way side during that time. In a way, it was like training for the big fight or the big game. Practice the basics, over and over. Practice them until you don’t have to think about them. Practice them until they come off your fingertips on their own. Grammar. Descriptions. Tone and cadence. All the little building blocks for making words paint a story.

 

During college, I took a couple of writing classes. One was just the basic sort of thing, nudging me in the right direction and giving me a chance to get all sorts of feedback. It helped me see the areas I tend to have the most problems (pacing and plot) but didn’t necessarily give me the tools I needed to fix those problems. And then there was the screenwriting class.

Everything we learned in class was something that I had, ostensibly, learned or at least heard before– with the possible exception of the overwhelming importance of structure. What I definitely knew was that stories needed a beginning, a middle, and an end. Or at least, I thought I knew that. What I didn’t know was that in addition to having a beginning, middle, and end, all three parts had to work together and feed into each other. Stop laughing. I know that’s Writing 101.

For whatever reason (I put it down to my professor’s years and years of experience with the subject and his steady patience and care for his students, personally), it finally clicked. Beginning, middle, end. Problem, complication, resolution. Chase your character up a tree, throw rocks at them, get them down.

Looking back, I know I couldn’t have made it this far on my own. I seem to have been born with the writing bug, sure, but without my parents, my friends, and my teachers, there’s no way I would have been able to grow and learn enough to get where I am now. Or even how to go forward from here. And, I’m sure, there’s a dozen other influences that aren’t coming quite as readily to mind, though I’ll remember them as soon as I upload this post.

So, thank you. To everyone. And to those of you reading, too, because you’re a part of the journey as well. Even in the two months since starting this blog and setting a schedule for regular updates, I’ve noticed myself getting (I hope!) better more quickly and in ways I wouldn’t have necessarily expected. It’s a wild ride, and with any luck it’s just getting started.

Musings

[Blog] On the Magic of Deadlines

Faith Hakimian

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There’s a certain thrill in a deadline, in having a specific point in time by which you must finish something or fail. And, for better or worse, I’ve always gotten along with said deadlines fairly well. Give me a deadline, and I will get more done than I ever thought possible.

Unfortunately for my stress levels, these bouts of productivity tend to happen either the night before or the morning of. I cannot count the number of essays I completed just before they were due, writing them in a rush of panic and sudden clarity. The sad thing is, the few I did write sensibly, over the course of several days, almost invariably turned out to be of poorer quality than the ones that poured out in one great flood. (Much of that, I suspect, may come down to lack of practice, but the point still stands.)

On a broader, less chaotic level, just having specific deadlines means I’m far more likely to finish things. Before I started this blog, I had set myself the goal (a deadline, perhaps?) of writing every day*. My target wordcount varied a little depending on outside circumstances, but generally landed between 100 and 350 words. It was fantastic! As I began to write regularly, whether or not I really felt like it, the words began to come more and more easily. I made progress in my stories, and it took less coaxing to get the words down on the page.

The problem was, I just had to write a certain number of words. Any words. I made sure they were fiction, but beyond that, it really didn’t matter. I could play around with a new story or fiddle with an old one. I could painstakingly carve out the next tiny segment of my current novel, or I could poke at a completely new idea that had just wandered into my head.

And then I started this blog.

Suddenly, I didn’t just have to write, I had to write complete stories and blog posts, and I had to write them in time to post them on schedule. It’s a self-set schedule, I grant you, but somehow, that almost made it worse. And so, I wrote: mini-essays, short stories, random musings. The one thing they have in common is the fact that they all need to be self-contained, complete thoughts. No more writing the first 250 words that I can coax from the ends of my fingers for me! (At least, not until I’ve done my work.)

I’m not going to lie– I’m only a couple of months in and it’s already hard. It takes a level of discipline that I don’t quite have yet, which would explain why I’ve ended up staying up until 5am, begging my darn story to just finish itself already. Hopefully, it’s going to get easier. I expect it to. In some ways, I need it to, since the human body can only survive on coffee and adrenaline for so long.

In the meantime, though, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that I’ve completed more short stories in the last few weeks than I had for months before.

 

 

* Or rather, almost every day, as I quickly found that taking Sundays off meant that I was far less likely to burn myself out.

Musings

[Blog] Packing

Faith Hakimian

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Last night, over the course of several hours, I started the process of packing up in preparation of moving out of my apartment. More specifically, I started packing my books (the most important things come first, of course). As I did so, two thoughts struck me. The first was that my bookshelves (and tables and various other flat surfaces) held a lot more books than I thought they did, and I’m slightly concerned about fitting them all into the boxes I have on hand. The second was the deep, half ecstatic, half frantic realization that I really, truly am about to spend the next four months in another country.

Pictured: five boxes full of books. Not pictured: three additional boxes, just as full.

There’s something about packing that is remarkably final. It is, if you’ll allow me to wax melodramatic for a moment, a physical embodiment of imminent change. I’ve lived in my current apartment for more than five years, but in less than three weeks I’ll leave it for the last time, and it will no longer be “home” to me– a strange thought.

Upon further consideration, I also realized that it’s the packing of my books specifically that has me feeling this way. I can pack clothes and computer without anything seeming quite so empty. But take away my books and leave my shelves all bare? That’s when you know that something is really going down.

Lest I sound like I’m slipping into melancholy, though, let me say that I’m almost giddily excited. It feels a little like it did when I was getting ready to leave for college, or like it did a few years later when I spent a semester abroad. Everything is new. Anything is possible. I have only the faintest idea of what to expect, and, despite what the over-cautious voice in the back of my head is trying to tell me, it’s going to be a wonderful, fantastic adventure.

I think I feel a little bit like Bilbo Baggins.

Musings

[Blog] Battering Rams

Faith Hakimian

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I am a huge proponent of brute forcing your way through writer’s block.

Some days, you just want to write. The words are coming and you like them and the story is unrolling before you in all its glory. Some days, you think it’s going to work out like that, only to have it all melt away as soon as you put your hands to the keyboard. You know the ideas are still there. They’re just out of reach. And then there’s the days when you feel like this whole writing business is absolutely nuts, you’re a hack, and why did you ever think you could do it?

And then, sometimes, that last kind of day stretches out into that kind of week. Or even that kind of month– or longer. Writing anything feels like pulling teeth, or pushing on a locked door, or trying to convince your cat that she should come cuddle with you. It’s awful, and it makes you wonder whether it’s worth all the trouble.

Which brings us back to the battering ram method of pushing through writer’s block. As a little background, I do my best to write two hundred fifty words six days a week. I can tell you right now that there are days that sitting down and doing it is the last thing I want to do. Maybe my mind is just wandering. Maybe everything I do manage to get onto the page feels trite and shallow. Maybe the last ten ways I’ve tried to start a scene have fallen flat, and I’ve already got a sinking feeling that Attempt No. 11 is going to do the exact same thing.

The only reliable way I’ve found to get myself past all that is to just sit and write. I can’t guarantee the quality. I can’t guarantee that the scene will suddenly sublimate into something wonderful. I certainly can’t guarantee that it will get easier to write on any given day. But I can guarantee that I keep writing. Despite the horrid, stuck feeling and everything that comes with it, I still have raw words that can be used, formed, and edited. Or I’ve crossed another narrative path off the list, which means I’m one try closer to finding the one that will actually work.

I can hardly take credit for this idea, of course. Many writers far better than myself have said something similar many times before; in particular, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and Agatha Christie come to mind. It’s also, more or less, the concept behind NaNoWriMo. And I suppose, in some ways, it takes some of the mystery out of writing, making it seem more like mining than anything else.

But that’s okay. Because writing is like mining, and there’s a lot of dirt and much less ore. It takes work– hard work– to create. And I’m not the first person to have that thought either.

Musings

[Blog] Hobbits and Droids

Faith Hakimian

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There are two stories that may go a long way in explaining who I am and why I write what I write. Or at least, they provide as much of a reason as I’ve been able to find, and it seems fair to blame them for my preoccupation with daring deeds and grand adventures. In any case, I find them enjoyable enough to be worth retelling. Perhaps you will too.

Both happened long enough ago that I’m no longer certain how old I was. That particular detail is lost in the fog, so I’ll just have to make do and say that I was old enough to enjoy a good story, but young enough that I had not yet discovered most of the ones that have since influenced me the most. So, something less than ten.

The first one started with a joke, and a silly one at that. My dad, as he often did, was teasing me. And I, as I often did, was teasing him right back. On this particular day, the final volleys of our exchange went something like this:

Me: “Dad, you’re silly!”

Dad: “Who, me? No I’m not!”

Me: “Are too!”

Dad: “D2.”

Me: “…what?”

At this point, my mom figured it was high time I was introduced to a certain short, feisty, blue-and-white droid. Our family spent the rest of the afternoon watching A New Hope, and I’ve spent the rest of my life wishing I had a light saber. Thus was my introduction to Star Wars and science fiction in general.

My other memory is of a road trip and a book read aloud in the car. We were on our way to visit some relatives, and though a quick search suggests that it probably took us less than two hours to get there*, as a kid it felt a great deal longer than that. Or rather, it would have had my dad not been reading The Hobbit to us. It’s difficult to be bored when Gollum is in the front seat playing riddles in the dark.

That was the day I fell in love with Middle Earth. You can imagine my joy, then, when I found out that there was a whole trilogy besides set in the same world. My heart was still broken at Khazad Dum, of course, and my first reading of The Fellowship of the Ring took far longer than it should have, but that’s a different story. I can still say that that car trip is what kindled a deep and abiding appreciation for Tolkien and his work.

Since those days, my love of all kinds of fantasy and science fiction has only grown. I’ve seen The Princess Bride and Star Trek and Firefly. I’ve read The Chronicles of Narnia through at least twice. The Last Unicorn enchanted me- both the book and the movie. Hugh Howey’s Silo Saga and Pierce Brown’s Red Rising trilogy both kept me up way too late on multiple occasions. All these and a hundred others are all stuck in my head and spilling over into my own imaginings, making them richer and far better than they would be otherwise. I owe a debt to all of these and more, but it all started when my parents introduced me to Star Wars and The Hobbit, which is why those two worlds will always be particularly special to me.

 

 

 

* That is, assuming I remember our destination correctly. If it was farther away, then I’ve underestimated how good my Dad is at reading out loud for extended periods of time, and I already knew he was good.

Musings

[Blog] Going Home

Faith Hakimian

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“Homeland” is a powerful word.

It’s a word that speaks of ancestry and history; an old word. It’s a word that hints at a bigger story. It’s a word that must be shared, because it belongs to more than you or me. It’s a word that has prompted good and excused evil. It’s a word that demands you pay attention. It’s a word that says it knows a piece of who you are.

It’s why sites like ancestry.com are so wonderful. It’s why, when you visit Edinburgh, you can find a hundred little shops with pamphlets and pins for all the Scottish clans and septs. It’s why you’ll run across ads that claim to tell you where you’ve come from, based solely on your surname.

It’s what the Shire is to a hobbit, and why the scouring of it is so important. It’s what Rannoch is to the Quarians. It’s what Aeneas had just lost, and what he spends an entire epic poem replacing.

And in the fall, I get to visit mine for the first time.

In case my last name isn’t a dead giveaway, I am Armenian–one quarter, on my dad’s side, though the percentage isn’t important. I don’t know who said it first, but my grandfather once told me that as long as I had one drop of Armenian blood, I would be Armenian.

My heritage is something that I have always been aware of on one level or another. My dad taught me the Armenian alphabet when I was a kid, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know about that part of myself. But awareness and full ownership are two different things entirely, and the latter has been a little slower in coming.

It still feels strange to say that I am Armenian-American. I’m learning the language, but I definitely don’t know it yet. I’ve studied some of the history on my own, and there are a couple of novels on my to-read list that will (I hope!) help add to my understanding of my people.

Of course, actually visiting, living, and working there for a while is going to give me an understanding that I couldn’t get any other way. Which would explain why I’m so excited. Terrified too, for sure. But mostly excited. You don’t often get to visit your homeland for the very first time.