One year ago, I was swimming with Sea Turtles in Hawaii, where I had traveled for the annual Memorial Day Lantern Floating. As a guest of the Shinnyo-en Foundation, representing the Orange County Interfaith Network, all expenses were paid for, and I was grateful.
Grateful because quitting a full-time, salaried position in Boston to start a Ph.D had cost me most of my savings--savings which other friends my age might have used to pay for weddings and down payments and mortgages.
Grateful because I was able to connect with the religious tradition of my deceased grandmother, whom I honored with my lantern floating, in the middle of the Pacific, halfway between the U.S. mainland and my family's Motherland of Taiwan.
Grateful because the weekend made an Asian American woman like me feel so seen--in part because Her Holiness Shinso Ito, who presided over the Lantern Floating ceremony, was an 80-something-year-old version of my embodied personhood.
Memorial Weekend, 2019, birthed something that is still growing today. It birthed the Pacific Rim iteration of my personhood and presence, which had needed time to emerge after I moved "back home" from Boston in the wake of a devastating season of loss and frustration.
I had found a certain kind of voice and leadership in New Haven, through my roles at Yale and the surrounding community. Boston tried its best to squash a lot of the qualities that felt most valuable to me--creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, and a joyful subversiveness against the Establishment.
Transitioning back to Southern California culture presented just as much of a challenge, and it was yet another season of reinventing myself and turning inwards to feel healed and grounded. Contemplative practices sustained me and ultimately restored my spirit.
It's been quite a year since the Lantern Floating in Hawaii. I completed a unit of chaplaincy training, which utterly renewed my sense of call and faith. My family experienced fracture like never before. I started preliminary research for my dissertation, and completed creative projects for school.
Oh, and I survived (and am still aiming to thrive amidst the continuation of) the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. It's been a blessing to be an introvert during this time. It's given me time to be creative and productive in the comfort of my own privileged living space.
In the last 2 months, I was able to write and perform 1 story, create and host 2 podcasts, and coordinate and help produce 3 webinars. It's been the gift of a lifetime, honestly. I also completed a 1,000-piece puzzle, during my "screen less Sundays."
I do miss hugs and personal interactions, and I find myself dreaming of various social situations quite frequently. I have experienced anxiety and frustration, and I have wondered whether I can actually be of any use to this suffering world.
But overall, I am so grateful. So grateful for the year I've had, and the year ahead. Filled with hope, not immune to disappointment and the losses I've experienced, and still hopeful for the love that casts out fear to rule in my heart and to spill out to those I care about.
They are floating lanterns again tomorrow, virtually, and I will be participating from my computer screen. I've got my weekly catch-ups scheduled--different individual girlfriends or friend-groups that I'm still rotating through--and no Bar-B-Q to attend.
But today, I write. I spell out my gratitude and my praise, and I listen to the chirping of the birds outside, and sounds of the earth, which glorify the Creator and bring perspective to the created--that God's mercies are new every morning, and great is God's faithfulness!
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