That good ol' ambiguous "They" says a lot of things. It has a voice that reminds us or guilts us with idioms and phrases that engrain collective images or values into our minds, based on societal ideals of our present environment and era. They might engrain them, collectively and individually, for decades to come. "They" can help mold a mind from a young age, painting an early picture of what "They" think we "all" might find in common, what we "all" might be able to resonate with. You grin at the prospect of your next paycheck, but pause as "They" say "money can't buy happiness". You glare after a betraying fiend as "They" say "what goes around comes around". You cry with a broken heart as "They" say "nothing lasts forever". Unfortunately or not, some of "They's" grains of "wisdom" do not leave after they have been coined. Some of them grow and expand. I bring up this topic because I believe the "They" voice resides in the same family of generalities and standards that can be harmful to humanity via these very generalities. While problematic in its general voice, "They"'s cultural effects are undeniable. And yet, they are also maleable. "They" and similar generalizations have never spoken for everybody. And when they don't, we must find ways to counteract, recreate, or generate a new voice entirely that speaks for us. I have realized this only more and more with age, and oh boy, is it a sweet and freeing realization. It began as a simple phenomenon I caught onto in one simple but heartfelt moment in my younger years, a realization that grew with my aging body, my growing mind, one that is dynamically shifting even as I write this piece.

The first time "They" spoke to me, I heard it's ever-present, omniscient voice from the TV screen more than a decade ago, originated via medium of a song, and subsequently messengered to my young self through the wet-nosed muzzle of a raucuous dog in one of America's favorite movies. "They" said then, and do sometimes say now, that apparently some of us "leave our hearts in San Francisco".

At least, that's how I remember the phrase the first time I processed it, and subsequently proceeded to really digest it as I grew older. The more-than-ten-year-old memory is pretty clear as day. I was watching one of my favorites, a golden flick, just a tyke at about 7 years old or so; "Homeward Bound: Lost in San Francisco". The heart of rugged, comical Chance the bulldog had just been mangled by the beautiful Delilah, the stray beloved he met in the alleyways while lost in sunny California. His usual spunk mournfully depleted, he trailed home behind his friends with his tail literally between his legs. My heart leapt into my throat as he turned toward the skyline of the famous gorgeous bridge across the water, across which the city as well as his love were now suddenly untouchable, and began to sing the melancholy tune out through the pipe of his downtrodden muzzle: "I left my heart....in San Francisco..."

My own tiny, but largely empathetic red, pounding organ leapt to my throat. At the age of seven, my insides cried at my empathy for this pup. At the age of seven, questioning my sexuality and identity, I identified with a character who knew at that moment he would have a broken heart for want of a companionship he might never have again. At the age of seven, this tune latched onto my heart, and stayed with me, molding into something bigger as I aged. As I came across the image of a map of the world at a much later year, I realized the phrase took on new meaning for me via a closely-related statement. The poster stated simply, yet compoundingly, "I have left my heart in many places". Once again, my own pounding organ leapt to my throat. At the age of seven, my heart broke along with a TV dog's as we both yearned (metaphorically and not) for something unreachably just across the water and over the far bridge. For my older self, this map of the world compounded the original ode to San Francisco. I knew more then and there that my feet, in some capacity, would never stop twitching for something, would never stop yearning for my San Francisco's and other destinations.

Are some of us born to never stay put? I think it's more than that, for all of us. I think this is where "They's" general voice as well as the commercialized collective heartfelt Hallmark phrases turn into something personal for me; I was born to travel. But maybe we all were; maybe it is so simple and natural as a dog's tail falling between his legs at the sign of danger or feelings of shame or reluctance, because we all are literally made for it. All of us. We are literally made to be bigger, to travel farther and wider than the earth on which we were born, to expand our minds beyond a tradition we know, or one that has been shoved down our throats, to learn from other vastly different traditions, to find our breath and feet again once more amongst vastly different worlds from our own. Maybe THAT's how we become healthy.

So "They" might say some of us leave our heart in many a place. I think we leave, and subsequently grow and nourish, a part of our minds as well. And thank the higher powers for that.

Allow me to explain.

It's been almost ten years since I last traveled to Germany, and I can still feel the globalizing effects it has had on my educational desires, the hunger it left me for more knowledge at such a young age, as well as the hunger for more Spetzle. It's been almost three years after Russia. And I still dream of it. Dreams as clear as yesterday's reality. White snows blanketing a vast flat land, white snows covering the highest of mountain tops. The Hermitage faintly in the distance beyond a woman dressed in her finest пальто (palto) and шарф (scharf), eyes on the ground as she grinds through the beautiful, unforgiving white.

I will still dream in Russian, and wake up daydreaming of the Russian I want to speak. I will still think of the streets I traveled, of the foreign conversations I had and have much more want to have. I still realize how much I learned, am learning, and how much more I can learn now just after having this experience. How much is beyond me due to the vastness of the world, and how much I love the journey that calls for me to reach for it. How I can take a step over one line beyond which I know almost nothing and have no idea where my foot will land until I actually get there, have no idea where my travels will actually culminate-and how much I find comfort in that. It promises me the possibility of potential greater than something that might keep a human soul suffocated. It suggests the possibility of human connection beyond a geographical border. And the endless possibilities of where to experience these new dangers suggests never-ending LEARNING. What's not to love?
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They say some of us leave a place, but our heart does not follow.

But, how is it, some may question, that you can leave your heart in two, three, four places? How is it that I left my heart in the Russia I visited, and also the vast Russia I still have yet to visit? While also having left my eyes in the busy and invigorating, promising Seoul that I merely touched for one week? While also having left my veins in the majestic Armenia and my hands in the vibrantly shifting Georgia that stole my breath with their mountainous views and tantalizing feasts? Well, I would ask, how dare we question that?

Why should we confine our beings and souls to one area, when they were clearly made from a fabric so diverse and complex that you can reach and feel beautiful, loving and enlightening difference right outside your doorstep?

So let's really tackle the ambiguous "They" here once again. I believe "They" is for you. The societal "They" voice might be everprescent, but it is also malleable, just as culture itself is by definition never static, ever-changing. It is who you want "They" to be. It is who you want to be, how you want to feel. Your "They" may be in Atlanta, Georgia with the peaches and the humidity that washes your skin with the memory of your estranged southern family. It may be in Germany where the feel of a It may be in Yerevan with the historical cognac museum and mountains that roll over a nation tied to a painful history and simultaneously blanketed in its peace with the generosity of its people. It may be in Tbilisi with the delicately crafted sheeps made from the most beautiful wool right alongside the streets where you celebrate the national day of revolution commemorating the heroism of protestors who fell to Soviet soldiers in the square.

You might ask what my point is. Ask me, and I might say that as human beings, we are not made to stay in one place forever. We are not made to be born, bred and raised in one setting without ever having fearfully and risk-takingly stepped across the ocean, across a desert. Our hearts, our minds, they're too complex for that. And as some of the ferocity, violence, racism, homophobia, sexism and other discrimination has proved time and time again, the more we shelter our minds as such, the more shadowed and bruised, the more violent and vacuumed of love, learning and understanding, the more fearful and tunneled they might become. The point is that the main communal effect any "They" voice, or any generality, should have over us is the yearning to learn, to question it all, to doubt what makes "They"'s idioms so prominent, for example. And then to go and mold them for you if they don't fit. To speak up for you if they don't represent and respect you and your brothers and sisters. To demand the respect you deserve, and to feel the right you have to be angry at the disrespect you might receive, and the right you have to demand more. I yearn for a time when the real generality we abide by is the desire to respect and love each other. And to learn. Learn, learn and learn. Let me learn from you. Let's learn from each other, in all of our fear, dreams, and love. "I left my heart in San Francisco" grew to "I left my heart in many places" to "I leave my heart in many places, and I grow and thrive off of it". Is it really so revolutionary to believe that we are born as a species not to stab with violent bodies and tongues, but to listen with glowing minds and hearts that love and travel forever in our wild?