Cultural Me~

The vessel I used is picture above and it’s my mother old purse that she would always wear to church each Sunday when I was little. I chose this because many people say that I look or act like my mother and that a big part of my personality is likely from her. In addition to that it is a reminder of how I basically grew up in the church and how it has played a large role in shaping me as a person, looking at it makes me feel rather nostalgic.

Another nostalgic peace is this shot glass with a picture of the Myrtle Beach sky wheel on it because when I was smaller for as fat back as I could remember my family would go to the beach. Though it is hard for me to remember all the details I do know that I was incredibly happy whenever we went on these little trips together. Back then there was a decent sized amusement part right up next to the beach that my brother and I loved going to and there seemed to be so many more attractions there at the time. I also hold this significant because I feel that I got along much better with my family during my childhood.

The next item is one of my metro tickets from the past summer when I traveled to Europe. The specific one in my hand is from Paris, I absolutely adored Paris with all my heart, the city lights at night, the cozy hotel beds and cute lobby, the monuments, the history, the culture, I never wanted to leave. If I was fluent in French then it would be my goal to live in Paris one day, I would never ever get bored with that city or the people in it. It also represent my love of travel and how I want to continue see new places in the future.

The next thing is supposed to be a miniature moonshine jug that I crafted and painted in 8th grade art. During prohibition they put scary faces on the jugs to keep children from getting near them. This relate back to my family history because my great grandfather was one of the biggest bootleggers on Polk Mountain during prohibition and I just felt like it was an interesting fact.

This red bracelet says “Send Lena to DC”, I have it from a fundraiser my family and I did to try to raise money for me to be able to go to Washington DC my freshman year and to see the inauguration of the president. I did this with a leadership program that I have traveled with since middle school. For me the wrist band is a reminder of all the wonderful memories I had on my trip as well as the fact that people at times see me as a leader and that I should try to at least be a good one.

Introduction

My nuclear family is a very basic nuclear family, it consist of my mother Allison, my father Perry, my brother Avery and me of course, we live in a two story house in Marshville up the street from the local elementary school. I’ve lived in that house on 307 North Elm street for as long as I’ve lived, it wasn’t always a two story house; one year my father cut a hole in the ceiling and for months after that I was greeted home from school by the sight of him and random workers in my living room climbing through the hole to carve out and construct the second story, my dad does construction and owns his own business for it so he can do stuff like that I suppose. I sometimes find it odd that my dad has his own business considering he never finished high school, he dropped out his junior year and went to work for several roofing companies and that’s been all he’s know. Mom on the other hand has the highest education in the household with a major in sports medicine and a minor in journalism but she doesn’t have a job, a few years ago she worked for a tax company but I’ve never known her to have a job besides that one. Avery graduated from Forest Hills High School in 2013, just as I will in a few days. He attended some classes at South Piedmont Community College, got a job at the Wingate University cafeteria and now works at the Monroe Olive Garden. My family has an odd relationship, we all tolerate one another but we all get on each other’s nerves a lot and tend to try to stay out of the house or in separate rooms. I feel that my relationship is better with my relatives than direct family, me and both of my grandmothers get along just fine, Joyce on my father’s side always let me spend the night and play at her house and she still has a genuine smile on her face when I visit. My great great grandmother Ruth and her daughter May Ruth live together and have always felt like more of a family to me, when I was little I would spend my mornings there and they would always make me french toast or something that they knew would make me happy for breakfast. I have three half sisters on my father’s side, Sarah and Rachel who have the same mother and both have blond hair and blue eyes, and Michelle who is mixed like me, they are all somewhere in their thirties now. Sarah has a daughter named Jayme who is the same age as me and 2 younger daughters named Cecily and Samantha, Rachel has a daughter who is a year younger than me and her name is Carmen, along with a toddler named Cody. Growing up Jayme, Carmen, and I would spend the night at my grandmother’s house together, jumping on her trampoline, making pillow forts, having little fashion shows and catching fireflies and just being children. Other than occasionally going out to eat together my nuclear family and I don’t do very much together.

Name Essay

Lena, Lee nuh, two syllables, four letters. The temptress or child of the light when in  Greece, alluring one by the Latin tongue, meaning to dwell in Hebrew, all of these different meanings and origins I do find to be interesting but I hold my own significance to my name for different and more personal reasons. The matter of what my name would be when I came into the world was a matter of debate for my parents, my father originally wanted to name me Harley after the motorcycle brand but my mother was highly against that decision, in the end I was named after my great great grandmother on my father’s side, Lena Rushing who had Native American blood and from what I’ve been told was a very memorable and kind woman.

Growing up people would often mispronounce my name in various different ways and many said it was an odd name, for a while I wasn’t very fond of my name for that reason but with time I eventually became more accustomed to it. A boy once told me that he liked my name because it fit my personality, that the first syllable Lee it came smoothly off the tongue and was gentle and light, the second syllable nuh was more stern and forced to be noticed or acknowledged, that description made me feel a lot more pride in my name. I don’t have any specific definition that I associate to my name but I do remember it for the interesting situations and stories that seems to randomly come out of it.

When I was in girl scouts and a lot younger I had some of the campfire songs stuck in my head so I didn’t stop singing them, one of the older girls who had taught the song to the troop asked me my name when she heard I was one of the only people still singing, “Lena, that’s a pretty name. I might name my daughter that one day”, she had said when I answered her question. In Europe when I had to get my passport stamped to cross over into France the man who checked my documents stopped and looked at me to ask, “Have you ever heard that song that goes ‘Lena, Lena, Lena’?”.  Of course I had not heard of the song but that memory just makes me smile. Recently while doing clinicals at the Brian center one of the residents asked my name and when I told her that it was Lena she told me that she used to go to church with a woman named Lena Horne, “Oh she sung so beautifully it gave shivers, such a pretty voice but that last round of cancer just got her”, I don’t know if she was joking or not because she seemed so genuine with her reminiscing, we had a laugh together when she wanted to know if I sing and I told her that I try to.

I don’t think that many people really have a specific face or meaning when they think of a name like mine but I do see some people’s faces light up when I tell them my name, some of them smile and tell me it’s pretty, a few even say it twice with wonder like it’s some sort of new discovery and I just can’t help but wonder if they are having their own memory that is related to my name.

I really love my name, I don’t know very many other people with the same name as me so I consider it to be rather unique. To me my name is elegant, yet fun, some may consider it to exotic or odd. I hope that one day when I have a child that they are pleased with the name that I give to them as much as I do mine, I hope that they can fill their name with memories.

My cousin Kaleel (our mothers are cousins)

My cousin brandy (Our mothers are sisters)

Oldest Living Relative

My oldest living relative is May Ruth Sturdivant, in May she turned 96, she has been in my life from the day that I was born, I call her “granny”. She was born into poverty, the daughter of field workers, when she was able to walk and talk she too went to the fields to try to help her family.

Granny and me