I had the great privilege to grow up in the Bahamas, go to high school and college in Switzerland, train for a theater company in the Netherlands Antilles, and have sisters living in France, Italy and England on whose couches I was welcome to “crash” (do they still say “crash” or does that date me?) anytime I needed an escape from my life. 

I traveled to Tunisia, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Morocco, Iceland, Bali, Thailand, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico and Canada in the process of growing up. I learned French and Italian, a little Spanish, even some Latin.

As a child, my warts were treated with silver dollars, my styes with gold rings, and a poultice made from pawpaw leaves was applied to my infections because my nanny was a practitioner of Obeah. When the Bahamian people finally threw off the yoke of centuries of British colonialism, my nanny cheered and my parents packed up and left the island, leaving behind everything that was — to me — comfortable, familiar and sacred. Forlorn and scared, I was plunked into the musty, matronly lap of a Swiss boarding school where I cried myself to sleep every night. But I learned that life was change and adaptation was mastery. I mastered my emotions and came to terms with rootlessness. At eleven I would never go home again. I learned French and realized to my surprise that I was in ninth grade.

Knowing a second or third language (only in America is that unusual) is a form of initiation. We learn to think as others think (there is no word for privacy in French), respect others’ customs (we greet the shopkeeper before examining her wares), and toss around their curse words (salaud!). We expand. We think stereophonically. We become aware of our impact on the world. For a child, this is a lesson in diplomacy. It mitigates our solipsism.

I discovered that humor varies wildly from country to country. Americans are good at laughing at themselves. Not so much the French or Swiss (they prefer laughing at the other guy). The Danish have the same funny bone as we do. Cartoons in other languages are surprisingly unfunny. The way our tongues wrap around words is as different as what we choose to laugh at.

When I lived in an abandoned wreck of a manor house in Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles), I was on the “Other Side” of the island, Otrabanda, the Black side, the side where you had to wait for the floating bridge to swing shut before you could get to work. Once again, the colonialists (this time Dutch) were in charge. We called our theater company Otrabanda and from then on I found myself swimming against the current. I was white in Nassau, American in Switzerland, eleven in ninth grade, and finally European in America. I didn’t belong anywhere and I embraced it. My theater was about breaking with tradition. My plays made fun of accepted social constructs. My style was flamboyant, athletic and unconventional.

As a writer, this serves me well. I am irreverent and quirky. I hope I am brave. I break rules but respect grammar, I think outside the box. I make fun of my suffering and light of my revelations. It never pays to take yourself too seriously. It’s important to see life through someone else’s lenses. It’s vital to sustain perspective, a broad perspective, a forgiving perspective, a compassionate, wide-angled view. Without that, we become narcissistic and territorial.

It could be easy to adopt the defenses of other cultures, hiding behind arrogance or religiosity or elitism, but let’s instead adopt their gifts. Let’s embrace our diversities (British), adore our saints and our children (Italians) and produce objects of magnificent beauty (French). Let’s be pragmatic (Dutch) and reverent (Balinese) and wise (Tibet).

If we allow other countries with their flawed personalities and priceless offerings to inform our own expression, whether it be through film, music, art or writing, we become citizens of the world. Now, more than ever, we need to be citizens of the world. Let’s open our hearts and listen to the world’s songs, let’s learn them and teach them to our children. Let’s allow travel to be the wise teacher that shows us the path to our own true humanity. Let’s dance together instead of making war. Let’s listen better and learn, finally, to love.

Cynthia Moore’s memoir, DANCING ON COALS, A Memoir of an Overperformer, is available for pre-order at your local bookstore or on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

“I was lucky enough to get to work with Cynthia when I became part of the Blake Street Hawkeyes. I’m not sure that she understood how much she meant to me because we were the two women in the group, and I was out of my element and without her I don’t think I could have given myself permission to fly, as only another woman could. Thank goodness she was there and actually saw me and our conversations fed the construction of my one-woman show. She was my good friend….”

—Whoopi Goldberg

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 Cover photo of Lucerne, Switzerland, by Wendi Baird.

Cynthia Moore is an award-winning playwright and performer who wrote and directed theater in the Bay Area for over twenty years before leaving the theater to earn a master’s degree in clinical psychology.

She has worked as a mental health counselor for twenty-three years, with a particular focus on the connection between spirituality and trauma.