Category: Alumni

by Crystal Alexandra Simmons, IRT ’24

When you ask someone “where have you been?” it can bring about a myriad of answers. Depending on the context, we often feel the pressure of naming and listing all the places and spaces. But what’s the point in sharing our travels if we don’t slow down and digest all the lessons from the experiences. Throughout my life, I have traveled to many places in the United States (and still some to go) along with four other countries (technically 5 but the Vatican was kind of a (twofer”). From an early age, my curiosity about the world and the life that inhabits it fascinated me. What do people do for work? What do they eat everyday? Do they like pancakes like me? Do they go see their grandmother monthly like I did? Do they have the same flowers as here? So many more questions had swirled in my head as a young child about ways of life that were happening miles away from my hometown of Waldorf, Maryland. My mother would often call me her “show me” child. As a child, I was constantly watching and learning from my environment. One of those early signs that my instinct to see and connect with the world was far more eminent than I realized. At one point in my adolescence, I thought I was going to go to Johns Hopkins and major in International relations (an elevator pitch I had developed after my first year in high school). But what was always fascinating to me about traveling was the stories of the people. My grandparents always had stories of the food they ate, situations they ran into, and how they met the people along the way. It was where I learned that no matter where you go, connecting with the land is about the people, and the people make the experience.