What I Learned this Summer

Since January, I have been imitating some of the blogs I read by posting a monthly summary of some things I've been learning. At least, I produced such a post in January, February, March, April, and May. When June came, somehow I wasn't able to summon the energy to write one, perhaps because I was recovering from school, getting ready to travel, and then traveling. The travel spilled over into July, and I got home, jumped back into my life, and then started school at the beginning of August. I did have a list on my desktop, however, and a few times I added to it.  So here goes, my attempt to share some of What I Learned this Summer.

This summer I learned more about immigration and asylum-seeking.  I listened to reporters and experts talk about the mess at the Mexican border, and I grieved for those people who had walked hundreds of miles with children in tow, seeking a better life, and then had those children taken away from them as soon as they reached the promised land for which they had longed every day of their journey. I learned facts and figures, pros and cons, laws and statutes, but I kept coming back to that shocked, grieving surprise in parents' eyes: the people I thought were good guys really aren't. My daughter would come back from work to find me obsessively clicking on video after video, article after article. "Mom," she said, "I try not to watch the news all the time like that. It's too much." It is too much. I turned it off and enjoyed precious time with her.

I learned that on a Sunday morning in a small midwestern town, before most people are up for church, and when you're walking to an early service, the level of quiet and emptiness of the streets suggests that an apocalypse just happened. It was a gentle apocalypse, leaving all the buildings intact.  It was a recent apocalypse, and none of the grass has had the time to grow a micrometer past the perfect length required for a gorgeously manicured lawn. But an apocalypse it must be, for how else to explain the total lack of human beings other than my daughter and myself, strolling down the street?  At home in Haiti, the road wouldn't be this quiet and deserted even at four in the morning. Everything is lovely, so exquisitely kept, the flowers I have to stop and photograph, the play equipment, the shiny cars, the homes just right there without high walls topped with barbed wire or broken glass, without gates.  And yet, there is a slight edge of creepiness, too. Where is everyone? Get up! It's a beautiful day!

I learned more about the delights of having a grown-up daughter, with her own wisdom and routines, her own delicious recipes, her own books (some of which, admittedly, used to be on my shelves at home), her own apartment, oh my goodness, when did this happen? My baby is right there in front of me, and yet she's a beautiful woman with a whole life of her own. She slept on the floor on a mattress her landlady had let her borrow, and I slept in her bed. The first morning I was there, she climbed up into bed with me and went right back to sleep, and I hugged her and went back to sleep too, and I guess it probably isn't possible to feel any happier than I felt right then.

I learned more about riots, as Haiti had some early in July when I was still far away from home. Trust me when I say it's more complicated than it seems.  And that is all I'm going to say right now. (Here are some thoughts from a Haitian friend.)

I learned again about how much I rely on glasses, when a riptide knocked me down and took mine while I was beachgoing with my parents. I wrote a poem about the whole adventure that you can read here.  I also learned more about riptides, and how dangerous they can be.  I'm thankful all I lost was my glasses, and I'm thankful that I was able to get new ones quickly. And I'm beyond thankful that I have worn glasses since I was nine years old, because without them I would be effectively disabled by my poor vision. I think often of how many others in this world do not have the opportunities I have had in many areas, and this is one.

I learned to identify a bananaquit, and I wrote about that here.  I am trying to learn more about the flora and fauna around me. I want to know what every tree and flower is called in English and French and Kreyol, to identify every bird. I ask people, and I try Google, and every once in a while I learn a new one to add to my store.  Being able to put specific words to things makes my life feel richer, as though I own them without possessing them, as though they are mine and yet I won't exploit them or do anything to them except take a picture and love them from a distance.

I learned, once again, as I've learned every year of my life, that "summer's lease hath all too short a date." I came home from my trip with photos and thoughts and memories to last me all year, and I spent hours and hours with my at-home family, and I read a big pile of books, and then suddenly it was over, and I was back at work. 

What did you learn this summer? Share it with me, so I can learn it too.