Summer break hits, and we all rush to the nearest exit. We fumble applications, obsess over portfolios, and consume ourselves with the endless "what ifs." Will someone take a chance on us? Can we stand out in a sea of applications? Did all those late nights and sleepless hours amount to something? Every student reaches that final stretch. Mine was the internship, and for a while, it felt like I was just standing in line, waiting for my turn to begin. People tell you that's all it is: A means to an end. An accumulation of hours.
For me, that feeling changed when I started at Root & Seed.
My family was always a little strange... different cultures, different geography, smaller even. We grew up knowing what they wanted us to know. Questions were often met with answers like, "It just is," or, "It just was," and that was the end of it. I knew my grandpa loved cars. That was the story, a simple notion, a small detail about my mother's life that carried no more weight than how someone takes their coffee. Until one day, I got a box of cards. One deck. Four categories. Sixty-eight questions. And too many "Dig Deeper" questions to count. They called them conversation cards. Funny... they just seemed like a game to me. What surprised me most was how one simple card told me more about my grandpa than I'd ever heard before. He didn't just love cars, he bought and sold them when they were cheaper than a new pair of shoes... or four Big Mac combos. One of his favourites was a bright blue GM convertible he bought from the legendary hockey player Gordie Howe. Every year or so, he'd buy another and take the family on adventures because, back then, it was affordable and something he genuinely loved.
But if I learned anything, it was to "dig a little deeper," because that wasn't the end of the story.
My mom continues to admit she was allowed to drive those cars despite his love for them. A snicker came quickly at the end of that, as if a memory had lit up in her mind. Casually, she admitted she'd burned a hole straight through the back seat with a cigarette one day. "Dad was furious," she said. Absolutely livid. Suddenly, my grandpa wasn't just someone who loved cars, he became someone I could picture. I could hear him, imagine him, even see him yelling at my mom... and maybe laugh with him decades later. It made him feel close, even though he's no longer around. I think it helped my mom too, like a small glimmer of the dad she knew and loved had come back. A memory she'd forgotten herself.
Sometimes it's not that people don't want to share. Sometimes they're far from the present, in a place locked away, or it's simply a story left untold because there's no one left to relive it with.
Working at Root & Seed has taught me that conversations don't have to be long to be meaningful. You only need a few extra seconds, a little curiosity, and the nerve to ask one more. It's incredible how quickly a simple prompt can open up a world of memories, generations of celebrations, and traditions. Sometimes those stories are profound. Sometimes they're funny. Sometimes they're sad. More importantly, they're our lives: how we lived them, and how it's up to us to continue them, to remember them.
You know, it's ironic. As creatives, we spend so much time learning how to tell stories for others that we forget to listen. This summer reminded me that the most important conversations aren't always the ones we lead, they're the ones we take the time to hear.
