A Quote by Natalie Merchant
I think the most enduring lesson I was taught through my experiences of being a Girl Scout was that I was a member of a larger community. I out-grew my uniforms and badges years ago, but the memories of visiting nursing homes or organizing Earth Day tree plantings or my summers camping with girls from all different backgrounds will stay with me always.
Quote Topics
Always
Backgrounds
Badges
Being
Being A Girl
Camping
Community
Day
Different
Different Backgrounds
Earth
Earth Day
Enduring
Experiences
Girl
Girl Scout
Grew
Homes
Larger
Lesson
Me
Member
Memories
Most
Nursing
Nursing Home
Organizing
Out
Scout
Stay
Stay With Me
Summers
Taught
Think
Through
Tree
Tree Planting
Uniforms
Visiting
Will
Years
Years Ago
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I was a Scout years ago, before the movement started, when my father took me fishing, camping and hunting. Then I was sorry that more girls could not have what I had. When I learned of the movement, I thought, here is what I always wanted other girls to have.
The Swedish winters and summers hold the most enduring memories for me. Now, when I am back in Stockholm in November, it is difficult to imagine being able to ski to school. I think that is a tragedy.
They usually have a piano in every nursing home, and I always wanted to perform for whoever would listen when I learned something. I grew to understand very early that a lot of these people who are in nursing homes are elderly and don't have a lot of things that give them joy from day to day.
I grew up going to funerals and visiting people in nursing homes. I'm not as afraid of dealing with the dying as maybe some other people may be.
Most Americans have some experience with nursing homes or other long term care settings, and nearly half have had a family member or close friend in a home in the past three years.
When I approach a more mature age, I am not going to live in America. Visiting my grandmother, when she was 94, which is a very long life in Cambodia, I saw how important it was that she was in a community with my sisters, brothers and all grandchildren were so involved in her life. I liked that experience so much more than visiting my sister-in-law's grandparents in a nursing home. It's about looking at a community through your window versus being part of a community that's alive, that is youthful and old and hungry and smelly and loud, where everything is vibrant and colorful.
What particular experiences will nourish your soul? No one can prescribe that for you; it is something only you can know and experience. What is satisfying for one person may be just the opposite for someone else. Being out in nature, by the seashore, or on a mountaintop works for me. Communing with nature brings me into soul time. But for others, being out in nature is something to be tolerated, or even an ordeal, or just what you do if you're a member of a family that goes camping.
My mother gave me very good advice years ago. I grew up in the Great Depression and she always told me to get a good little basic black dress - well-cut, well-made, good fabric - and it could take me through everything. I could go to the office in the morning and stay out all day in the same dress. Just by changing accessories, because they are so transformative, you can make six different outfits. I find that very useful. My mother worshipped at the altar of accessories and I'm an accessory freak, as everybody knows. That, I got from my mother.
Different people, different backgrounds, different ideals... We walk in different doors at the beginning of the day, and we walk out of different doors at the end of the day. But when it is time to go out on that field, we all go through the same door.
You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away.
I gather together the dreams, fantasies, experiences that preoccupied me as a girl, that stay with me and appear and reappear in different shapes and forms in all my work. Without telling everything that happened, they document all that remains most vivid.
I come from a family of conservation activists, and so I've had a strong connection to nature all my life. My father has been a leader within the movement for over thirty years and has taught most of what I know about environmental conservation. While he would always take me hiking, camping, and rafting, he also taught me that the spiritual value of the outdoors alone is not enough to save nature against economic interests.
Badges mean nothing in themselves, but they mark a certain achievement and they are a link between the rich and the poor. For when one girl sees a badge on a sister Scout's arm, if that girl has won the same badge, it at once awakens an interest and sympathy between them.
I think back into when I was in college coming out, what I had to go through, the steps I had to make. And I still play with that chip on my shoulder to this day and I always will, so that's something that'll always stay with me.
My mother taught me to focus on being myself and not to worry what other people think about you. I know that as long as I'm a good person I'll stay on the right path. From my dad I learned that when someone tells you “No” it's only the beginning of a conversation. They both have always let me know that I can do anything I want to do as long as I don't give up. They are the most important role models in my life because they are exactly who I want to be when I grow up. They are supportive and understanding and I try every day to remember what they've taught me.
For me, you go to university to meet lots of different people from different backgrounds. I think that's one of the most important things you get there. And you also get some sense of direction regarding what you want to do when you leave. I sort of know what I want to do in my life - I want to act and ultimately I'd like to write. And in terms of meeting people from different backgrounds, that's what you get on a film set. So the two most valuable things that university would have given me I've sort of achieved by being on a film set.
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