Unconventional Roots: How It All Began

It’s funny. I often feel like the path I’ve taken is pretty different from many of my friends and family. I took time off from jobs to try all kinds of travel adventures and internships, to really embrace life and figure out what I loved (and learned what I didn’t love, in the process).

Knowing that, and knowing that many of us were raised in similar ways, and grew up in similar areas, I always wonder where this difference came from.

And I’ll never know for sure. But looking back to earlier pieces of my life make me realize just possibly how influential some experiences might have been.

CAMP, CAMP FRIENDS, CAMP LIFE

I grew up going to camp, and working at camp – and at one day camp in particular.

When I was seven, we had recently moved from New York to Connecticut, and my parents wanted my sister and I to stay busy for the summer. We were enrolled in a day camp about 30 minute from our house, and for the next twelve summers of my life, I was immersed in that place.

My first date was from that camp. My first hike (albeit short) was through that camp. My first (and only) times watching snakes eat mice was at that camp. Ha.

I learned to swim and boat and weave there. I learned to love the Grateful Dead there.

I absolutely loved camp, so much that I went on to teach environmental and farm education, and work in public schools. It was my second home for many years, and I’m still in touch with some old friends from that dear place.

I know – it must be – that this camp deeply influenced who I am.

MY BEST FRIEND, THE VEGETARIAN

By junior year of high school, one of my closest friends became a vegetarian.

It was a slower change for me. But eventually, by the summer after my senior year, I eschewed meat, and eventually became a vegan.

Had she not become a vegetarian back then, I don’t know if I would have taken that path too, towards vegetarianism, and veganism, and back again to being a vegetarian.

Yes, I’m quite sure my good friend the vegetarian (though she no longer is, which we joke about now) deeply influenced me.

MY SUPPORTIVE FAMILY

Of course, what supportive family doesn’t influence their children?

I think the real kicker though, was when I was in college. Every year my parents would say, “Why don’t you take a business class, Lisa? It’d be good, just to have it.”

But my parents also would say, “We just want you to be happy.”

And every year, I said no to the business classes. I went on with my dance and arts and anthropology classes, loving every minute of it. I was so happy in college – getting involved in all kinds of clubs and volunteer projects, and loving my studies.

I went with happiness. But getting a liberal arts degree doesn’t always translate easily to jobs, so I went on, finding more unusual positions that matched what I wanted to do.

And feeling supported. Thankfully.

GET THE REST OF THE UNCONVENTIONAL ROOTS SERIES:

• Unconventional Roots: New Beginnings

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