New years often possess the power of imbuing us with a resolve we could not have mustered even just two weeks prior. Or maybe that is just me. I love new beginnings and while I am always kind of working on shaping myself into a better human, the start of a new year seems to offer me this sort of fictitious clean slate–as if this next year of life isn’t a continuation and reflection of all the preceding days…as if I will suddenly be new and the difficulties of days gone by will be erased simply because the year possesses a slightly different numerical makeup. And yet, I remain completely enthused about the possibility of a year, because it is in fact, how we tend to mark our lives.
As this most recent year came to a close, however, it also brought an entire decade to its completion. I hadn’t even really considered that prospect until a student mentioned it to me (and also mentioned that they were 8 at the start of this past decade…8…and in that moment, I realized once again, I am old).
Well, this gave me pause for reflection.
Before this past decade, vertigo was just a word, a stranger that other people knew intimately but I never would, a misunderstood malady because how could it really be so bad.
My lived experience in this past decade wove vertigo so tightly into my identity, into my core, I can hardly remember a time when there were days I didn’t have to think about it…didn’t have to worry about it…didn’t have to make decisions based on it. A time when I was free.
Before this past decade, I didn’t even know the school I’ve spent the entire ten years teaching in existed.
My lived experience in this past decade not only brought me to a school and a people that I needed more than they needed me, but also allowed me to live into who I am as an educator and as a creative thinker and even as a human in this world in a way I could never have foreseen.
Before this past decade, my boys were babies, 2 and, well, if we are using numbers, 0. I lacked the knowledge of who they might become but reveled in days full of building Lego towers and towns and snuggling sweet sleepy boys…and with every snuggle, my heart that ached with the loss of Nathan didn’t necessarily heal, but felt closer to him and so began to repair.
My lived experience in this past decade introduced me to the kinds of thinkers and humans my kiddos would grow to become after they left days at home with mom behind for days full of friends and school. And that journey continues to be full of challenges but also full of beauty and joy.
Look, I could do this all day. Go on and on about me then and me now. It would get pretty boring, pretty fast (well, not for me I suppose). What I learned in this reflection though, was this–in order to survive in this world I need a few things–
patience because the worst is typically temporal;
perseverance to make the patience possible;
an open heart and mind to allow those around me to be seen and to allow them in;
acceptance, without judgement, of all the moments, whether they seemingly reveal themselves as easy or hard…good or bad…because those moments, when accepted, will shape me and grant me the fortitude I need to face all those yet to arrive.
And there is one more thing I need. Writing. This blog is a gift from me to myself (probably more than to anyone else) and I owe it to myself to continue to honor who I am as a thinker and a writer by continuing in this space. The best way I feel I can resolve to that in this new year is to restore the King Cake Writing Challenge from last year.
For those of you who weren’t reading with me last year, here is what this entails. I love (LOVE) king cake. And today marks the first day of king cake season which will carry on until Mardi Gras day. I am a purist and a firm believer that king cakes out of season are a travesty. The challenge is this (modified from last year out of necessity)–If I write every day of the week, excepting Wednesdays (giving myself some grace there), from today through Mardi Gras day, I will have earned a giant slice of gluten free king cake to be eaten on that joyous, raucous, party of a day. To be successful, I cannot miss a day of writing and I cannot give into the temptation of tasting king cake before Mardi Gras, no matter how difficult it might be!
Feel free to read along (or even to write along and then we could have a king cake party at the end…just saying, company would be nice), or not, but I will be here everyday hoping to re-establish my writing habit and to give myself this gift in this new year of existence.
(Day One of 2020 King Cake Writing Challenge)
Sometimes You Just Need A Poem 