wisdom

a haiku

 

Swiss chard

bright green

fresh

with balsalmic vinegar

in January

 

from a chalet in Port au Prince

Dear Wisdom

THE MOON

The moon is round

as round as round can be

Two eyes,

a nose,

and a mouth so sweet. 

The moon is round

as your little head

as round as you go around and around inside me

at 4 AM

as my belly grows rounder

as the earth rounds the corner 

to where we greet the glowing sun

Tonight the moon was round and glorious. 

Wisdom while Pushing

Once when I was in a race, a fellow runner and friend told me that when you think you can't go any further, you always can go quite a bit further. I've only really tested this out brain-wise...when I was in teacher's college. I guess I've used it to climb a few mountains too.  Many Haitians, especially rural Haitians, especially during planting season test out their physical capacity b/f breakfast. I think pushing physical capacity is good for us blan people but pushing emotionally or mentally takes an uncomfortable toll our typically under-served and serviced physical selves.

Run for Life

Dear Wisdome, Tonight we found out that Run for Life Haiti will run in front of our house and Gabriela's school on Thursday morning around 9 AM. Run for Life Haiti is Barry McDonald running 12 marathons across Haiti to raise money for a new larger maternity centre of Heartline Haiti. Heartline is the long-standing organization in working in lower Port au Prince, Haiti whose midwives helped Niko be born in 2009. Heartline was just opening it's first birthing centre then. Since Niko, many many babies have been born at Heartline (77 babies were born in 2012) and hundreds of mothers have received pre and post natal care at Heartline. You might be born at Heartline too but...it's seriously not time for that yet. In the meantime, I signed us up to run with Barry from our house to Gabriela's school. It's 2 km! I'm totally psyched.
Heartline had a vision that's it's running to achieve. Martin Luther King had a dream. Barry had a vision of running across Haiti. Having a vision or dream is an important, beautiful, and grounding tool for living a good life. It can be anything from improving maternal health, climbing a mountain, learning to speak Khmer, helping children read, knitting a sweater, forgiving someone, reversing climate change, fighting against racism, qualifying for the special olympics, making the best banana creme pie, building a bicycle from scratch, writing a book, getting off drugs or discovering new ones. As long as you believe in it, it won't matter how hard it is, or what anyone else thinks. Can't wait to run with you.

asphalt and ritual

Dear Wisdom, they are paving the roads for your arrival...you and Mardi Gras (Carnival). Carnival is in Cap Haitian this year February 10-12, 2013. This is the second year that National Carnival is held outside of Port au Prince. I've heard some folks are renting their houses in Cap for $3000 for three days. We're not going to pave our house for you but we're getting a ceramic floor put in on top of the cement. We're also taking you to all the rah rah bands we pass by. We're scooping out a second solar panel. We're brainstorming on how to make more room in the bedroom. We already bought you a mobile! Today I made and drank nettle tea and sat on the rug for two hours to honour your request. I'm thinking about paint. What colours do you like? (Skin colour?) But most of all, we're preparing for you by living here, here between two mountain ranges, in the dust, in the sun, in the rain, in the moonlight, because we want to share with you the dust of these mountains, the pain of contrast, the joy of living with others, and the ritual of making fresh juice. In Haiti, paving a road is a project for special occasions. Something like lights at night could be ordinary but is most often extraordinary. Haiti has shared many extraordinarily sacred moments for us, including this one. Ritual and asphalt. May you know the value of both.

pyjamas and seeking counsel

Dear Wisdom,

Your brother Niko is pretty sure that you'll want to use his diapers when you come out. He says when you do (come out) that he won't need them anymore. He'll wear JUST pyjamas to bed. I hope you don't mind if we take your presence as an opportunity to grow up a little? Well we are in any case. So, thank you.
...that reminds me to tell you that there are all kinds of right ways to grow up. You get to choose the right-est ones for you. Of course, we won't expect you to choose EVERYTHING on your own. Seeking counsel from "wise" people is always a good idea. No hurry though, let's do the diaper thing first.

Sleep in peace dear one.

Black, White, and Grey

Dear Wisdom.    We read the Solomon story in the children's Bible again last night.  I definitely need to dig a little deeper especially for your sake as I wouldn't want to burden you, a baby, with excessively high expectations.   Knowing the difference between right and wrong seems pretty black and white.   As far as I can tell there's a lot more chocolate and cream and cinnamon and honey and not to mention grey around here (and anywhere I've lived) than black & white.  Sure, stealing is wrong.    But, what about foreign companies from high-tech countries coming to low-tech, low-resource countries and mining for gold (this is literally on the table currently for Haiti) without paying enough for the gold or labour to extract it or for the environmental repair.   Hurting people is wrong.  But what if the people you are hurting by buying a T-shirt for $10 is a cotton farmer that you've never met?  What if you are helping your neighbour who works at the store where you bought the T-shirt?  What if the government of your country of citizenship is making policies that hurt people in your neighbourhood, country, or another place?   What if you don't know how to reach or relate to people that are hurting?  

I'm going to dig deeper into the meaning of wisdom.   We'll see what I find.  In the meantime and for the moment, there are a few things that I know for sure are right.  

Tree-ripened fruit is definitely right.   Vine-ripened fruits are also right.   Chadèk (Haitian grapefruit), zoranj dous (sweet oranges), and grenadya (passionfruit).   Enjoy these as they come to you as you are sharing your full season with theirs.    

(Clean) Water is by far the right-est drink to date.   Drinking it regularly goes a long way to health and healing, as does being honest with others but especially with yourself.  

Feelings are not good or bad, right or wrong but they are feelings and they are important.  

It's right to apologize when you feel sorry.  

Right is the opposite of left.  

Doing the right thing will not necessarily earn you accolades.  

If you don't get accolades, it doesn't mean it's wrong.  Look at Jesus for examples of this.   The writings of Shane Claiborne may also help.  

Sincerely, your ally in love and righteousness-seeking

W I S D O M

Dear Wisdom, now that you are kicking inside me and the whole neighbourhood is watching you grow daily as we walk or ride by, I know that there are what will only feel like a handful of days left to write before my hands will be holding you instead of hovering over this keyboard.   You are 28 and a half weeks old, so the BabyCenter's e-mails tell me and if I remembered better how long you are expected to be in there for (40 weeks?), I could calculate how many days approximately you might be kicking inside yet, but I'm not ready for that yet.  I am not impatient for you (to come out).   You are already here.   I want these days to savour you just where you are, to marvel at your flexibility, to be grateful that you are so well-packaged up, to get to be kissed too when you're older siblings are kissing you through the skin of my belly as they do spontaneously, to talk to you from the inside, to feel the curviness that you've granted my lower spine.      

WISDOM

Dear Wisdom, when we discovered that we are expecting you in the summertime in Winnipeg, we were shocked, surprised, and nauseas : } I was working on a renovation team gutting a friend's house, Matt and the kids were getting re-acquainted and inhabiting the local park, we were applying for jobs in Africa that we weren't getting, we were getting used to Canada again, we were making new friends (and missing old ones), and praying that something more long-term would fall into place by September.

Unlike the other two bambinos, you dear one came wholly unplanned. We were/are excited but no longer naive to the reality that growing a child from a mustard seed-size to at least age 6 and more likely 16 or 17 is a full-time job whatever way we share it between each other and our community. We needed WISDOM. We need WISDOM. And so we call you WISDOM.