What Moving From City to City Has Taught Me About Influence

One of my favorite pictures that shows the scar on my forehead, the cellulite on my thighs and behind the scenes of what most photoshoots look like. No mirrors. Photo credit: Easton Schirra. — One of my favorite pictures that shows the scar on my forehead, the cellulite on my thighs and behind the scenes of what most photoshoots look like. No mirrors. Photo credit: Easton Schirra.

It always hits me like a rare song from my childhood I haven't heard in 17 years. No matter how often it comes, it's always the same poignant feeling. Every single time I move from one city to another, I feel a shift in influence. It's so great it cannot go unnoticed, but it's only the changing period, the greatest period of noticing, that I can hear its full effect at loud speaker volume. The before and after speak more quietly. And it's only recently that I've begun to listen to those interim voices.

I used to feel the same dissonance when I moved back and forth between Georgia (where I was raised) and California (where I went to college). In Georgia I would feel such a strong nostalgia for "home" and childhood. On the flip side, California felt like freedom. Like my own song that had been raging within for 18 years finally set free. And the two always felt in conflict. At least I assumed they were in conflict because at that time I didn't trust myself enough to believe what my body knew.

Different circumstances open up different parts of ourselves. They can sweep us back to our youth and pull on our inner child's heart strings. They can make us feel open and limitless. But either way, I believe we feel, see, take in and project whatever is in front of us. We mirror the qualities of our surroundings by spitting back the only thing we know how to spit back: what already exists inside of us.

And we have a choice. We can take in influence and mirror the best of ourselves or the worst of ourselves.

I just left Budapest this afternoon. And now I sit at a bar in Vienna. I feel my mood shifting. What follows is my own exploration of my inner self:

Class difference. I come from money. Growing up, there were stipulations that came with that. Saving face. Looking pretty. Cleanliness: literally and metaphorically. Vienna has that poise of wealth I know. I am more in my "comfort zone" here. But the remnants of Budapest still lurk in my shoulders. Dirtiness. Scrappiness. A night crawler. A little more edgy. No paying attention to money. No wealth but the ability to survive.

At this moment I feel Vienna and Budapest coexisting within me. Some of the reflections good. Some of them bad.

And in these moments. The moments of grand awareness. That's when I have the brilliance of clarity. The clarity I strive for every day. The realization that though these influences shape me, nurture me and help me grow, I have the power to choose which mirrors I look into.

I do not have to look in the mirror of vanity. Or selfishness. Or class systems. Or unworthiness. But I can choose to look in the mirror of loyalty. Of faith. Of strength. And in the rare moments of pure unadulterated bliss, I can authentically look into no mirrors at all. I can simply be, reflection transcended.

FACEBOOK