Community – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane
I had a realization this weekend when I was talking to some people who were friends of friends in the Kansas City Irish community: I don’t need to try to be someone else or to accentuate one part of my personality over any other part to fit in, I am who I am and the people around me accept me for it. Growing up I would see my friends and classmates make their name as the big baseball player or the dancer or as the Polish guy who could tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the thing, they were passionate in. For me, I filled several different roles from the history and geography nerd to the Irish guy in the room, to the Chicago kid living away here in Kansas City. Yet throughout all of it, I always felt the need to highlight one part of who I was over all the others in a given moment.
I often get annoyed when I see other people do this, when they talk about the same thing over and over again to no end and will catch myself doing the same thing. So, it is a relief and a moment of joy to realize that I don’t need to be that person, that I never needed to be that person. I’ve always been complicated and multifaceted in my interests, roots, and personality and I am the combination of all those things.
This weekend saw my return to the Kansas City Irish Fest after five years away thanks to my time in Binghamton. I remembered the Fest being larger in the mid-2010s during my most recent visits, and this year my own participation was somewhat muted by outside circumstances of a new job and a general need to use the Labor Day weekend to rest after months at work on my latest dissertation draft. So, I found myself relieved to be surrounded by my own community, the Kansas City Irish community which is made up of long-time locals like my maternal family, recently arrived Irish immigrants, and transplants from other Irish communities across North America like my Dad and I. It was a moment when I felt like I was returning to something of the normal that I once knew before the pandemic and before I left for Binghamton that I had forgotten I missed.Still, the holiday weekend also saw another momentous occasion in the history of this city beyond the regular annual festivities in our community. On Friday, 1 September, the new aquarium at the Kansas City Zoo opened. I got to tour it with my parents on Labor Day, this Monday, and was awed at the achievement of all the people who conceived of the idea of building an aquarium at the Kansas City Zoo, and of all the people who built it including one of my uncles. This aquarium, while small compared to the Shedd in Chicago still offers a complete picture of life in the world’s oceans and seas from the deepest depths to the coastlines. I want to go back on a cold, snowy winter day when no one is at the Zoo and just wander the halls of the aquarium without all the people around and admire what was achieved in that building’s construction. Surely there will be scientists who will be inspired by that building to pursue careers in marine biology and oceanography. That alone makes me radiant with joy at the future that this our metropolitan community has as we continue to improve ourselves and open ourselves up to new worlds and ideas, and with each passing day to a great many more future possibilities.
Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane 
I felt your sense of coming home as I read this blog. What you describe here is community at its best. The aquarium sounds awesome.