My story begins even before I was born. My father lived in a world of oppression and persecution. As a child in Czechoslovakia ravaged by Communism, he was compelled to escape to the United States.

“Not everything is black and white.” My mother tells me this almost every day. But my piano begs to differ.

Eleventh grade. This is a combat zone. The American Studies classroom is adorned with shiny gold stars, glimmering like military medallions.

I am African-American, Caucasian, Jewish, and gay, and narrowly escaping the degradation of my ancestors: my great-great-great grand- father’s slavery, my grandmother’s persecution in the Holocaust, and the denial of gay identity.

Clear, hopeful melodies break the silence of the night. Playing a crudely fashioned bamboo pipe, in the midst of sullen inmates—this is how I envision my grandfather.

“Ut Italiam laeti Latiumque petamus”

“Beth, would you mind reading the next few lines and translating them for us?”

I first performed brain surgery before I learned how to drive. I vividly remember guiding a slender, metal scalpel and the thin trail of red that followed.

When I broke the news to my volunteer team, we were in a church basement, cleaning up after the final event of the summer. I tried to downplay it.

I beamed while leaping off stage, proud of overcoming my two largest hurdles— public speaking and spelling. I apprehensively anticipated applause to fill the faux “class-itorium,” but instead, my peers filled it with laughter.

Under the spotlight, I wore a fluffy, emerald robe and an exquisite, shining sword, with an artificial beard on my face and a wooden crutch in my hand. I was excitedly acting my role and performing the story, together with my classmates.

The Vardar River carves its crooked way along the bisection of my hometown Skopje. Even though it might seem as if Vardar is just a body of water, to the citizens of Skopje it carries much greater social implications.

“I don’t understand. You are not Buddhist, but you spend so much time studying Buddhism.” I have often heard this statement, but coming from a monk at the renowned Shwedegon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar, it resonated more deeply.

It all began one day in June 2004. It was the end of the school year and everything was covered in a veil of idleness. For my classmates, this season of chirping cicadas was a time for games by the sea. Not for me.

Ten minutes before my orchestra and I were due to perform what would be my first symphony, our conductor called us into the wings of the stage for a pep talk.

I sat in a pair at the starting line for the repechage of the 1000 meter rowing race at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China. I had trained all summer, twice a day, six days a week, for this level of international competition.

Family is everything, right? For me, this is especially true. My oldest brother, David, has Asperger’s Syndrome.

“Right here,” says my dad, motioning to a large booth on the right. It’s a cold winter morning and we have not eaten yet, but before picking up the menu and even considering food, we both instinctively reach for the white containers at the end of the table holding the sugar packets.

As the lively thoughts in my mind battled for priority of investiga- tion, I was more than content sitting in an empty room with bland, white walls and a shabby, old mattress.

Around 2005, my house was constantly strewn with Polly Pockets and Legos. My sister and I liked Polly Pockets, my brother liked Legos, and the amount of time we all channeled into our respective activities was astronomical.

What is love? A promise at the altar? The soft kiss of water on parched lips? A flash of his shadowed gray eyes, or the tender caress of pink pigment on her cheekbones?