This Year (2020)

(Background on Dad's phone 
when he passed)

It’s the last day.
It’s the last day of a year
That came and is now going.
There is heartache, joy, peace, dissension, death, and life
In each year that comes and goes.
 
In 2020, our darling, sweet baby Marabelle Marie-Ève joined us
In this big, wide, world.
Her sense of humor and constant changes
Energize and inspire us.
We pray for her future and dream
Of the life we have ahead of us.
 
In 2020, we lost my dad—the only one I had on this earth.
A long journey of grief, that accompanied his illness,

Including his passing after 9 years of being sick and in pain.

 
In 2020, we lost my last grandparent: my dear Grandma Lind.
People in my family always say we have a lot in common:
Wide thumbs, love of travel… 

(Belle meeting Great-Gran)

 
In 2020, we lost my uncle. He sent Marabelle a sweet pair
Of shiny golden shoes. I’m glad she has them to remember him by.
 
We lost one of my cousins, too. I didn’t have the chance to know her well.
Our family grieves her unexpected loss.
 
Three of these four precious ones passed within a span of 30 days.
 Marabelle,
Our dear, sweet Marabelle,
did not have the pleasure of meeting any of these
significant and irreplaceable people
In person.
 
In 2020, we took our first international flight with
Our baby.
At 10 months of age, she met her dear
Granmè, Granpè, grantati li yo, tati li yo, tonton’l, kouzin li yo, ak yon kouzen.
Laughter, hugs, kisses—these were a treasured gift
That we now hold onto in our memories and photographs.  
 

(Tout fami)

Seasons come and they go.
Throughout unpredictable ebbs and flows,

(Tout fami)

I extend my arms to embrace a new year,
Marked by the calendar,
That calls me to respond in gratitude, reflection, sadness, joy, anticipation, and yearning.

 

Living Between

Today, I opened a package for my master’s: it enclosed book #1 for my program. I was thrilled. I’d followed the tracking status, considered following up with the campus mailroom, and was frantically checking our mailbox for the book that said it had “arrived.” 

I’ve wanted to “continue my education” ever since I graduated with my BSE in 2011. I love learning. I love classes. I love books, textbooks, assignments. 

My first textbook revealed itself inside of the generic packaging. It looked familiar. It looked familiar in a good and somehow sad way. Where have I seen that before? A few minutes later, I remembered that I own the book already. I bought it years ago. I never made it the whole way through, but that wasn’t the point when I saw its cover today. 

Today, this exciting book, representing the first class of my new program, also reminded me that I live between worlds. This is something so many of my friends (and my husband) live with daily. 

That book, that I own, that is sitting (as a rental) on our kitchen table, is a book that I left behind. It’s not on the bookshelf in our two-bedroom apartment now. I double checked. It’s stashed away in a box at a friend’s house (waiting for me for when I move back) or already gotten rid of—during a lucid moment when I probably processed through moth and rust and the insanity of storing paperbacks, for years, untouched, in a tropical climate. 

Missing one thing leads to missing other things, other people—family, loved ones, favorite places to go to, to visit.

That’s all to say: I’m sad. I’m being reminded of the self I embody and how it’s not all in one place all the time. I’m thankful for this little family of mine who is always with me. And I’m thankful that my life is more dimensional and complicated--that it's not just flat and level, but sometimes it can be a bit painful.

Patience & Complexities

I often listen for a word for the beginning of the year.
I’m not into the New Year’s Resolutions where my perception
Is limited to imagining people setting unreachable goals,
And then, oh, somehow still feeling surprised when the
Passion and stamina run out before February.

I’ve been so negative lately. Why am I like that?
I used to be one of the most positive people I thought I knew.
My parents usually talked more positively about people
Day in and day out than the combination of other people I knew.
But somehow I’ve gotten "judgy"
and negative and self-focused.
I actually started pressing “delete” on that last adjective. But,
I can’t erase something just because I don’t like it.

One of my deep desires is to be authentic,
Even if I don’t like what I see.
Even if I want to print a better, more lovable version of myself
On paper:
I can’t do it.
And I somehow don’t want to.
I can’t connect an inauthentic part of who I am with someone else
Because it’s like oil and water.
I might try to stir it all around and pour it out before it separates,
But it does.
It always separates, eventually,
So I’m forced to process and re-evaluate.

So, one thing I do as the New Year approaches, is I ask God
To give me a word for the upcoming calendar year.
It doesn’t have to just be one word, but that’s usually what it is.

This year, the word was “patience.”
I didn’t like it.
It sounded boring, and I didn’t want
To have to go through that thing that happens when
You’re developing a new character trait—which is
Refinement by fire—finding myself in situations
Where the most natural reaction would be impatience,
So that I can grow more patient.
I don’t want to be in frustrating situations or around
Frustrating things.

So, as I’ve been developing this year—
In the midst of infant cries,
that I am unable to
interpret just as quickly as I
think I’ve figured out how to translate them,
I’m finding that I’ve become stale, boring, negative, and impatient.

I tell stories about the student essays that suckkk,
And the parent emails that are driving me crazy
Because they are sent to me one after the other
From frantic, stressed-out parents who want their kids
To succeed more than the kids themselves do.
I get stuck on the idea that
Everyone is just living enough to get by and that
Few people really value being true to anything anymore—
Other than the selves we’ve propped up in front of the cameras
That are flashing in our hands.

So, maybe these stories and thoughts,
more than I realize,
are more
A reflection of the impatience that has grown inside of me.
Maybe I’m supposed to be learning how to really embrace a
Whole-milk version of patience,
Rather than a 2%, 1% or fat free option.
Maybe the patient response I send to a parent doesn’t
Mean much if I’m internally scorning them for the bad vibes they sent
Through to my inbox;
Maybe it’s all about the storm outside
And inside.

How calm am I?
How gentle is my spirit towards the ones I am around?
How life-giving are my thoughts and attitudes towards
My neighbors, my students, their parents, my friends, my
Husband, my daughter, myself?

Patience seemed like a disappointing focus for the
Year set before me,
But now,
Halfway through this double-twenty,
The scales are starting to fall off of my eyes,
And I’m seeing more than specks
Reveal themselves before me, inside of me.

My plate will always be a mixture of the enjoyable,
Lovely, delightful, strenuous, boring, and unlikeable moments
And tasks.
I desire to develop an internal calm and peace
And patience in and out of all of these things.
Lord, keep molding me, don’t give up on me,
I’m listening, and I want to grow.

* * *