#4 — Our curious knack for knowing where things go and other notes from an unplanned year.
Swimming with the old and the new.
Like an estimated 1 Billion people on the planet, I keep a journal. Earlier this summer, I reviewed old entries from my twenties all the way back to grade 1 printing books. A favourite one from graduate school, titled Lessons from 2013, included a list of all the countries I hoped to one day travel to. At the top of the South American set: Brazil (now, some seven years later, my country of residence, my home).
Tick (ya'll who've been watching The Crown Season 4, that moment was THE ONE for me).
With all but one of my journals some 8,000KM away, I tried to rack my brain as to what it was I, once upon a time, set out to do this year. I accomplished long-standing dream to live abroad and (finally) learn a second language. I kept writing — started and retired two manuscripts, garnered over 100K views (woo!) and almost doubled my followers on Medium, created a narrative arc for this newsletter, drafted an eBook coming to you in a hot minute. But, like most people, this year included an overwhelming amount of things that were "never part of the plan".
After sixteen months off work for health reasons, I left the corporate world without a job offer and still a small fortune of student debt that lead me down that fluorescent-lit path in the first place. I weened off anti-depressants, contracted (and promptly recovered from) COVID-19, and wrestled panic attacks. I said hurtful things to people I love.
I also bought and became obsessed with a Kindle (never thought I'd see the day), eloped to my best friend (whom I love so much it hurts), and started swimming classes in the ocean three mornings a week (where I not infrequently run into both turtles and plastics, depending on the day).
It just depends.
I missed the birth of my best friend's first child, and cried when I saw pictures of my mom holding her for the first time in full PPE and a mask. A volunteer position turned into a 'real gig': I started working for an incredible non-profit working to make the innovation economy accessible to everyone. I started believing anything is possible, depending on our circumstances.
On the whole, I was unimaginably fortunate this year. I received a job offer, not a layoff. I recovered from a virus that (as of 8:42 local time this 23rd of December, 2020) has taken the lives of 1.72Million. As of this sentence, more. COVID-19 stymied rituals we cherish and removed a sense of stability from basic things we'd come to rely on. Public transit commutes. Snotty classrooms. Parties.
Still, as we do, I had my problems. I've had my less fortunate periods in my life and who knows what future ones will look like. When they'll show up. What support systems will be accessible to me.
Looking back, one thing this year has certainly taught me is just how important cultivating a sense of flexibility towards change is for my mental health. Impermanence is a truth it helps to remind ourselves of. In my experience, it makes everything better, which is to say it makes it tender or tolerable. It just depends.
Life.
In her existential memoir meets nature essay collection, Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald writes,
"We make things according to plans, but all of us also have that sense of where things should go. We feel it when we arrange objects on mantelpieces or furniture in rooms. Artists feel it when they construct collages, when they sculpt, when they bring pigment to bear on a surface, knowing that the dark smear of paint just here provides or provokes a sense of balance or conflict when viewed in relation to the other marks upon the scene. What is it in us?"
It feels silly to think about plans for 2021 (especially as I watch Ontarians go back into lockdown). A time typically full of bustle and international reunions is stripped down. Essentials.
So instead, I'll sign-off with this: count your blessings, trust in impermanence, and consider what is it that's in us, that sense of where things go?
Happy new year, and wishing all those who celebrate a Merry Christmas (Feliz Natal!)
Until next month! Beijos from Rio,
Jodi
“Her marriage ended as it began, with a journey and windows out of which she watched the world go by.”
- Natasha Trethewey in Memorial Drive -
What I'm Reading (and Loving) Right Now
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way by Jesse Thistle
The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald