After the holiday festivities, all I want to do is plow through the dead of winter, straight into the sunnier, hopeful days of spring. There's usually a lull after Christmas, a slight peak with Chinese New Year, and a dip back down until Easter. With fewer occasions to mark the passage of time, my survival tactic this past winter has been to create opportunities to gather.
Weekends are no longer resigned to chores and personal administrative things, like grocery shopping (although, if you know me, a trip to Wegman's can be a carnival). Regular Saturday calls with best friends and a Sunday lunch after church act as pace markers to plot the marathon journey through winter. More than that, intentionally surrounding myself with solid friends, in-person or through technology, no matter how far apart our feet may be, has buffered the effects of work and life heaviness. While most hours in a week are spent in warfare, weekend gatherings and catch-ups bookend the battles, giving me space to disarm and remember that there is softness, beauty, life, and light outside darker situations.
In The Romance of Places, the brilliant Annelise Jolley writes about sentimentalism and holding a moment of awe for the small, good things we're acutely aware will change. As fond as I am of a place like Boston, the "place" that means most to me right now can't be plotted on a map; rather, it's wherever my heart feels most secure and safe, centered and surrounded by relationships that make me feel seen, humbled, enough.
My ESL students from Ukraine, Turkey, and Ecuador are teaching me what it looks like to fight daily for hope when grief tries to destabilize your footing. My buddy, Mike, continues to hold the door for fellow commuters every morning. On our ride home, we've been exchanging conversations on topics ranging from the World Cup to migration, building our friendship one minute at a time. I've been invited into a new community group, "Parents and Teenagers," neither of which I represent, but am wholly thrilled to be welcomed by. One year later, I'm honored to have earned the trust of the four and five year old human beans who call me their Sunday school teacher. If you're like me, whose friends have lived halfway across the country and the world for most of your life, I highly recommend scheduling out catch-up calls so you can stay connected and look forward to that next date in the calendar. I still can't believe I got to catch up with all 4 of my best guy friends within 2 months, 2 of them in-person. And if you're looking to deepen fresh connections, don't be afraid to invite someone over. Building tables breaks down walls.
"Lucky you, I want to say, if you've fallen in love with a place. Lucky you, to find somewhere that suits you and tugs on you from afar, a place that changes but remains fixed, waiting for you to look on it and love it again." (The Romance of Places, Annelise Jolley)
Both people and places evolve, but how wonderful to look forward to growing alongside souls that are here to stay.
Good things:
How You Love Me (Patrick Mayberry via Spotify)
Making Space in 2023 (Annelise Jolley)
Meet the Food Fighters of Ukraine: How we built the largest relief operation (Chef José Andrés via YouTube)
This father-son portrait shot on film using a 20 foot release cable (Travis Cobb)
5 Tips For Street Photography In A Small Town (Roman Fox via YouTube)
The Feeling of Home in 35mm (Chris Chu via YouTube)
Rise - Kill Your Idols (Passion City DC via YouTube)
Monuments to the Unthinkable: America still can’t figure out how to memorialize the sins of our history. What can we learn from Germany? (The Atlantic)
No comments:
Post a Comment