September 21, 2003: On the Plane

I'm on the plane home, thinking about how this was such a mish-mash of a week. For one thing, I spent all my mornings in the hotel room editing and writing. On Friday, I finally mailed in the manuscript of this Einstein book I've been working on for the last year. So that right there was pretty big news. (An aside: It was great to be finishing that up while in Germany, as I knew all sorts of esoteric bits of information. Someone mentioned "Max Planck Institute" and that it was a national science institution and I cut her off with: "yeah, yeah, used to be the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Einstein worked there." Though my favorite random trivia was when we crossed Carl Von Ossietsky Street and I burst out without thinking: "Hey, Einstein nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935.")

What time wasn't dedicated to physics was split between dealing with Big Germany Issues -- from the Berlin Wall to the Holocaust -- and much more light-hearted playing. Last night was all food and wine and dancing and promising to e-mail each other before we meet again next year. The end of the symposium always gives way to what would only be seen as serious hokiness, if you weren't so very involved with it all. In Chile two years ago, a hundred of us all stood at the final banquet in a circle holding hands and singing "You've Got a Friend." I kid you not. The wait staff all groaned and rolled their eyes. I would have groaned too if I hadn't been so busy singing.

Yesterday, in honor of the group, we planted an apple tree. The ceremony came complete with the speeches with the usual metaphors -- strong roots, interconnected branches, enough light and water, and the Foundation will continue to flourish. We all wrote down our wishes for the Foundation on a piece of paper and tied them to the tree. Mine was that over the next twenty or thirty years some of these students would be in positions where their decisions have global impact -- and so their experiences with the Melton Foundation would have effect on a much larger scale.

Already the alumni do incredible things, studying in other countries, working with free medical clinics, organizing groups that work for peace -- but the oldest alums are still in their early thirties. I can't wait until the influence of this group gets wider and stronger, affecting the world. Because in my week of alternately playing and focusing on the problems of both fascism and Stalinism, I think there is actually a common theme -- and it's one that has come up several times in the notes I have written this week. Hatred grows inside walls. I truly believe that simply knowing people with as many different backgrounds as possible is one of the most important steps towards learning how to work out one's differences. I know, I know, it sounds about as hoky as singing "You've Got a Friend" but you're just not going to give in to dehumanizing others if you have enough experience to know, despite what someone tells you, that they are, in fact, human.