I would like to create a tradition for my family - something special - but I feel so drained, and it would require some energy and freshness and upbeatness on my part to put it all together.
As a new blogger, I feel the pull to write something new years-y. Marking moments seems to be important for blogging, and since I started writing, I have already let so many pass by.
This has been a huge year for me. I have become a stay-at-home mom of two kids, living in the jungle in Argentina, blogging and cooking and dancing the hokey-pokey. It is simply shocking. And the coming year looms large and unknown.
But it's just not happening for me right now. I would want my reflections and my resolutions to be real and sincere, to reflect the joy, pride, beauty, ambivalence, isolation, fear, uncertainty and exhaustion in my life.
To appreciate the boldness and the audacity of leaving our life in Canada behind and moving to Macondo, to acknowledge its challenges, without casting it as 'adventurousness' or some other such thing that does not do justice to our intercultural and transcontinental dilemmas.
To consult with myself, deep down - How am I doing? What am I doing? What do I need? What do my kids need? What does my partner need? What can I do? What can we do? How can I help my family, and myself, to thrive? (And my community? And the world?)
I wish I had the time and energy to do this thinking and writing. It would be good for me.
Here is a resolution: I'll get to it. I'll do it for real - some honest introspection and resolve. I can't do it today, or tomorrow, or probably this week or maybe even the next. But over the next few weeks I resolve to find the time and crowd out the distractions so that my little head and I can do some thinking and planning and resolving, and acting on it all.
In the meantime, I'll teach the monster and the monkey a lovely New Year's ritual I learned just three days before I met Macondo Papa (yes, that means that our anniversary is only three days away, and no, I haven't had a chance to think of anything special to do for him. As usual. Good thing I know he's in the same boat.).
I was in a beach town in southern Mexico, celebrating New Year's with a group of other backpackers. A Danish girl shared her ritual and we all did it together:
We climbed up onto chairs and logs and whatever else was about. And at midnight we all jumped off, with both feet into the new year.
Happy new year!
2 comments:
What a great ritual. I've missed midnight at the time I'm reading this (10:55pm Sydney Australia) but I'm going to do it anyway. It's still the first day of the new year.
I really loved reading about the cultural differences in terms of when people do what. How marvellous that kids get to hang around and be a part of everything and there is no expectation that you force them into sleeping.
It probably appeals to me because my 3-year-old never ever ever wants to go to sleep, ever. Perhaps he belongs in Macondo!
Best of all, I like thinking about the fact that kids are forming their version of normal right now and right here. It's a lovely and slightly painful way to think about it.
I'm a migrant to this country and often reflect on the fact that my son's childhood memories will be very different to mine in many ways; that he won't attach significance to the same stories, locations, customs and so on.
I think it makes it easier to realise how separate they are from us.
Anyway, sorry to post such a long comment but wanted to say Happy New Year back and I look forward to reading many more posts in the following months.
Flo - I think all 3-year-olds convert wherever they are to something resembling Macondo. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
Did you end up jumping into the new year? I wish I had taken pictures. Jumping off chairs was a bit too much to ask of our toddler (though he would have loved to), so we made a circle and jumped into it. It was fun, and marked the moment.
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