Hello dearest readers! After a significant hiatus from Blessings Blogging, I wanted to finally update you all in the midst of a few transitions. Long story short, in the last four days I...
... wrapped up three jobs in Northfield...
... set up my first art exhibit with some of my travel photography (if you're interested, head to the Northfield Arts Guild before mid-October!)...
... attempted to say "Goodbye for now and I'll see you sometime" to everyone who touched my life there...
... moved everything out of the room I was renting...
... moved everything to my parentals' home in suburbia to pack for my next year in Tucson...
... sorted/packed most of my belongings not coming for my service year and moved them to storage...
... said "Goodbye for now and I'll see you sometime" to my family...
... and hopped on a plane for the next adventure.
I have been so blessed by so many opportunities to learn and create relationships in Northfield, and I'm so thankful to have gotten to spend more time with current Carls as well as meet and work with so many wonderful students, mentors, and community partners. My time in Northfield was truly the perfect place to be for this second half of my gap year, and working with many Latino students and families helped me prepare for my upcoming year! This is where the leaving is difficult, though. I leave with the knowledge though that the reason is hard is that I invested my time and heart to the fullest extent, and that so many hearts and minds opened to me as well. I will dearly miss my core Zumba crews at each place I taught, my Carleton professor with whom I had been working since sophomore year, and above all my TORCH team who have inspired me, put up with all my questions, taken me under their wings, and let me fly.
I am also thankful for another thing that made my Northfield experience even more fulfilling - a new companion to process, ponder, and love life with. Reflecting on the little things and living life in the present drew me to quality time with him over reflecting through this blog, so I do apologize to my readers. I hope you understand that processing comes in waves and in different forms, and writing is something that goes in waves, especially as I default to one-on-one quality time with other human beings. I hope you have found ways to reflecta and fulfilled wherever you are and with whom you are as well!
As for other things I'm thankful for... I'm thankful to have been a guest at the long-awaited first lesbian wedding at my amazing home church! "Same Love" and "At Last" were the perfect music to affirm the love of this couple who has been waiting for this moment with their darling daughters for years!
I'm thankful for the wonderful blessings my home church gave me with a formal sendoff during Sunday's service with a laying on of hands and an outpouring of prayers, blessings, and love for my journey. This following a children's sermon about hands as tools to bless others with how you use them to touch and love and work, as well as the main sermon message deeper on the same topic and connecting with the Spirit. My two favorite quotes were: "It's one of the great paradoxes, that the more you let go of yourself and your desires, the more you find yourself," and "Whether you believe it or not, whether you want to believe it or not, the work you do with your hands is the presence of the Holy Spirit to another." I so strongly believe that. Even if you don't believe in a higher power or the Spirit or think what you believe in looks different than what someone else does, if you put good out into the world, that is the best you can do and hope that someone else will receive it as good. You may never know how you touch another soul, but you may as well try. My church community has poured so much soul into me, but I also had to intentionally open my heart to receive it. I was both shy and cynical for many years about faith and religion, but I'm so thankful that now I can see what a truly special, loving, creative, justice-driven community this is, and it is instilling the values of peace and justice for all in all it does. I hope I can be living proof of that investment.
I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to say goodbye to the house I grew up in, and for all my parents' help getting all the rest of my earthly possessions ready and into storage. And I'm thankful my parents have found their ideal place to downsize too, even if it's making their/our lives a little bit more hectic for the time-being.
I'm thankful to have gotten to thin down my key ring a little bit as I devolved my car key to my parents and their house key to probably never be used again. Wow.
I'm so thankful that I got to say goodbye to my family in transition - my momma at home, my dad as he brought me to work with him, and then I got to have one last breakfast date with my new amor before he drove me to the airport. Hasta pronto.
I'm thankful that despite how hard the leaving is, I can take heart that I know what is waiting on the other side is the right next step in my journey. I am to be a YAV (Young Adult Volunteer) and serve in Tucson, Arizona with BorderLinks on immigration justice issues!
And I'm so thankful for all the well-wishes from near and far for my year of service. At church I was invited to join a bluegrass group in Tucson with a couple who winters down there, hugged and kissed, and reminded to "keep us in your pocket." Another reminder was that "It's going to get hard. It will be wonderful and you will be wonderful but life is hard. But we can't do it alone, so know you can always draw on us whenever you need to."
And while I'm so amazed and overwhelmed with gratitude by the messages of support I've received from so many people, I think the most important message for me to hear was from someone dear to my heart who happens to be from Mexico and have a much closer relationship with immigration justice issues: "People like me need people like you to educate others like you." That hit me so clearly because as important as it is for groups who are in a racial/ethnic/cultural/gender/ideological/religious/political/etc. minority to advocate for themselves and their history and their rights and their dignity as fellow human beings, those of us who come from places of privilege also have a responsibility to learn from, better understand, and advocate for their human dignity as well. We need to make those connections and work in solidarity. It's tough, but we have to try.
And as I left for our program's week-long orientation in Stony Point, NY before we fly out to our sites, I received this message from my new site coordinator in Tucson:
"Happy 1st day as YAVs!
travel well.
Be blessed,
be a blessing to others."
I'll try my best, and may you be a blessing to others as well. Thank you to all who have supported me, believed in me, and invested in me. I hope to work with sacrificial love each and every day in the Tucson community, finding myself by letting go of my desires and serving others to hopefully make their days a little bit brighter.
With that, dear Blessing Blog readers, I do not know how often I will be updating this blog for the next year, if at all, because I will be reflecting on my year of YAV service mainly on my travel blog. So find me at kemstravels.blogspot.com, and may you be light and love to others!
Peace,
Kathryn
