Year 27: A Review

a mosaic of things that have inspired me or that i've learned this year, along with some personal prose + a birthday musing on grief + growth.

New words I learned:

• Nascent: just coming into existence + beginning to display signs of future potential

• Ephemerality: comes from the Greek word ἐφήμερος, meaning ‘lasting only one day;’ the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly.

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Quotes:

I have kept a note on my phone since I was in high school of quotes from people I love, from podcasts, books, shows, etc. since I was in high school. These are a snapshot of some that gave me comfort, empowerment, and/or perspective this past year.

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some writings from this past year:

5/26/23:

I sometimes wonder what the purpose of the work I do is,
 the toil, the dreams 
I list out on scattered sticky notes, 
always yearning for the momentum to play the role 
like I have the script, know the narrative. 

What is the purpose to this production, 
often rooted in competition and capitalism, 
when the end is the end, 
as immaterial as the echo of 
he last note sung, 
the fullness of it lingering only
in the memory of it. 
Is individualism harming us? 
When what we remember most 
is how we made each other feel? 

I write my intentions on a fresh yellow square, 
to wire my mind
and remember
how to be alive:
Enjoy the gift of an ordinary day. 
Invite more ease into moments and movements.
Move with and through the overwhelm to be a teacher of it.
Be curious, of the absence and the fullness of things. 
Make art and share it 
because
maybe it is fulfilling who we are 
and why we are here. 

Perhaps the purpose of this orchestration
was always in plain sight - 
curved in the brilliance of influence,
our light, 
every atom apart of us, alive. 

5/29/23

Could we return to the grey 
blooming over South Park. 
When we found a corner spot 
at good voyage. 
The coffee wasn't cheap,
the grounds not to your liking.  
But possibility crept 
up the wall paper, 
seeped into the golden
table light. 
What did we talk about 
in the tucked away nook 
on an unassuming Tuesday
that made leaving 
feel like I had lost something, 
had to mourn the unuttered 
avenues of thought
we could have pioneered/explored 
if we had just stayed;
Stamped the cold, 
checkered ceramic with our 
increasingly tepid cups, 
printed our bodies’ warmth
on the green velvet  
cushions.  
Who could we have become
if we had stayed 
and stumbled upon 
something beautiful? 

6/3/23: (dream within a dream)

I dreamed of tacky brown 
flowered wallpaper.
Its skin peeling from the layers
of teenage angst i try to scrub off 
my soft body; thick humidity
makes my hair frizz 
in ways I am ashamed of 
because it is
not straight and pretty. But familiarity
wafts in as my nervous system
settles at the scent of home
And I am reminded who I am
because of where I came from:

Whistling with steady stream 
NPR radio trumpets pour over the steam  
and the after shave musk in the orange square bottle 
with the silver squeaky cap
seeps through the chipped wooden 
bathroom door cracks. 

It’s Sunday today
and I am 3, 
watching my papa 
shave his brown whiskers,
I always insisted were black,
and point his chin in the air
to place his satin tie just right.
 
I am brushed ringlets 
and green daisies blooming 
over the hand sewn meadow
made with love by mom.
 
We tuck our clean into the blue camry 
as we put on German pop hits  
and scurry off to two church services. 
And after, an afternoon of 
papa’s pizza 
and un-rushed rest. 

It’s Sunday today:
missing three
missing
papa. 

10/4/23:

Why do I feel papa close in the 8am rush through security, 
while sipping the heart of a morning 
and gliding past the wooden chairs, holding 
the feeling of home: business in crisp slacks smelling of fresh shave, typing.
Papa liked airports
because he liked the
The anticipation of the adventure, the possibility it held. 

Maybe I feel him the most because
it was here that time froze; 
the in between of hearing the news and 
knowing them to be true.
it was the corner wooden chair near the intersection of 
terminal A and baggage claim
where I met the new me I never asked for:
a stranger to the daughters
walking with their fathers. 

I sip my decaf cappuccino. 
Here the ghosts play. 
I am my papa’s daughter,
I speak over myself 
a truth 
I used to know. 

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Things I did this past year that I’m proud of:

• Learned how to make jam and cider and canned them, used grandma’s jam labels like papa did.

• Sewed my wedding outfit

• Biked a lot and pushed past the boundaries I thought I could go

• Recorded and produced 85% of my album

• Taught myself how to code and built a website

• Broke my elbow and recovered in the promised amount of time- this body is capable of healing.

• Hiked farther than I have since surgery

• Planned and coordinated my wedding

• Demoed my kitchen

• Made the decision to change my career, and started a Bachelors of Computer Science

• Said no to more things to create more room for a slower pace of life

• Taught myself how to produce electronic music

• Started playing the piano again and wrote a song

• Learned how to knit

• Adopted more responsibilities in my family’s property management business

• Started working out without a fitbit, moving my body because it feels good rather than trying to achieve a certain goal

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A birthday musing: 

For those who know me, you know that I always ask the "birthday questions." Questions like: From this past year, what was something you were proud of yourself for doing, what is an experience you will always remember?  For this next year, what are your intentions/goals, what are some mental/emotional/spiritual goals you have for yourself? I ask these to the people I care about because 1. it's nice to slow down and be present with my people, to bear witness to who they are in this moment in time and all that they are becoming and 2. The "birthday questions" have been asked by my Papa on every birthday since I was a little girl. So it's a tradition, and it's my way of continuing his legacy of intentional connection + thoughtful pursuit of growth. 

This year, it is hard to answer Papa's birthday questions because time slips by so quickly and we never know when we will run out of time. I find myself running full speed after my intentions in honor of papa, to be driven like he was at my age, and then sometimes asking myself is this really how I should be doing it? I want to live vivaciously, curiously, intentionally like he did, but I want to still remain present, not disconnected from the magic offered by boredom and un-rushed moments.

The duality of Papa's birthday questions now:
Questions centered around goals and growth being asked by him who is gone, abruptly taken in the middle of all he had planned for 

There is so much grief wrapped up in a birthday now. I grieve through ritual: extending a hand to the present, teaching my mom how to knit, while extending a hand to the loved ones we've lost, as we knit with Great Grandma's needles and Grandma Ehnis' thread. I grieve through remembering: visualizing when the fog hit on May 3, 2022 and Papa, dressed in his blue German jacket, wiping the sweat from his brow, dug a hole for my garden bed, as I plant tomato plants like we used to do together in the garden bed he had dug for. I grieve through connection,  grounding myself to the memories I keep like treasure, remembering who I am because of who loves and has loved me.  

Stay with me for a moment of existentialism: What's the purpose of our goals when nothing in this life is promised anyways? Control is such a facade. There is a sense of peace to that. I say it with grief, but not grumpily or hopelessly so. More pragmatic, matter of fact: we truly cannot control what happens to us. The reality we dream up for ourselves will always look a bit different than its initial seed. Whether we look at it as negative or positive is completely up to us. For myself, I've learned that my perception + reaction to what happens to me has a direct impact on how much I suffer.

I mourn the 28 year old I wish I could be: running, hiking the mountains I grew up hiking, walking freely/mindlessly and forgetting about the body that carries me, receiving a long embrace and a harmonized happy birthday from both of my parents. But that version is not mine. 

I am grateful for this version of 28, though: the love, the freedom, support, and safety I have, a partner who brings so much joy to my life, amazing friends, healthy relationships with my family. I’m grateful I have learned how to bring in more ease in the face of pain, how to focus on what I can do vs. what I can't do, for papa always taught me to be content in all of life’s circumstances. The duality of life: contentment + grief. I'm learning how to live with both. 


If you've made it this far, thanks for being here and bearing witness to this capsule of growth + becoming. <3