2022 was certainly a year of first times. Right from the start the year promised to bring the unexpected. Two days prior to my family’s departure to return back home, in the middle of what was supposed to be our last special meal together, they revealed to me that they were not leaving yet, that they were staying a couple more weeks in January to celebrate my birthday with me. I still remember the immense joy that ended up in a few happy tears. They had planned it all along, and I had no idea. It was the first birthday celebration with all my family in over a decade. Along with that beautiful surprise, I had a few more first times that brought unimagined blissful emotions this past year. For instance, an unexpected connection awakened a side of me that had been dormant for far too long. My spirit flourished, my creativity bloomed and my heart wished to indefinitely explore such unprecedented, organic, captivating, passionate, loving and exhilarating flow. Plus, in 2022 I was introduced to Brussels sprouts and it was love at first taste, to the point that I find myself secretly craving them at least once a week.
Four months ago I saw a beautiful white lotus flower in a dream. It was surrounded by darkness, a black background that made it look even more magnificent. This flower grows in muddy water, yet it remains pristine when it blooms above the surface. At night it closes again and submerges to then re-bloom the next morning without getting dirty from the cloudy water. It's a symbol of rebirth: to flourish in the midst of difficulties, impurities, and murky waters. The lotus is quite known for many, it is a sacred symbol for many more, and yet I had never seen a white one. The beauty of the lotus lies in the fact that it rises from the depths of darkness and murkiness. Sparkling clean, it manages to embrace a new day in spite of the gloomy surroundings. Such metaphor elucidates the other side of the first times I experienced during 2022.
Luna got really sick for the first time last March. I had never felt that vulnerable, lonely and powerless before. Fear became unbearable and I ended up for the first time ever knocking on a neighbor’s door because I felt that I could not breathe and felt that I was about to pass out. Overwhelmed by fear, stress and embarrassment for being extremely vulnerable in front of a stranger made the situation a bit more complex. I must say that his kindness despite the fact that we had never spoken more than a few words before filled my heart with warmth and gratitude. Shortly after the episode I realized that I needed to substitute fear with acceptance, hope, mindfulness and serenity. Only then I began to witness beautiful miracles. Life took a different turn and I felt deeply humble and a bit ashamed for prioritizing the superficial, the non-transcendent aspects of life and for taking for granted the beauty of the little things that adorn each of our days. Luna healed, and through the process I did too.
Such episode made me wonder: What happens when we put ourselves out there? We risk failure, but we also risk the possibility of expanding and flourishing in unforeseen ways. Brené Brown says that the birthplace of love, belonging and joy is vulnerability; and that courage cannot happen without risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure. If we think about it, all of these elements can be terrifying and paralyzing at times, yet I have come to learn – the hard way- that they are also the birthplace of creativity and some of the unexplored, unknown, yet beautiful feelings that have populated glimpses of happiness in my life. Faulkner once said: “Given a choice between grief and nothing I'd choose grief”. I believe this quote truly captures the essence of what happened last March and all the subsequent similar episodes of fear and heart ache this past year. When I imagine my life without the pain that inevitably accompanies anguish, heartbreak or any form of unrequited love, I have come to the conclusion that hurting in places that I didn't even know existed within me makes more sense than the agony of the void. From that grief, almost always a new perspective is born, an aha-moment, a miracle, a new skill; on the contrary, when I have chosen nothingness, numbness, I have entered moments of dull stagnation and even physical ailment. So, taking the risk to fully embrace first times and serendipitous encounters may actually bring about the most exquisite uncertainty, the one in which wondrous feelings and creations are born.
The white lotus showed up in my dream to remind me about the two faces of rebirth. Pure happiness and love will always have the counterpart of fear, as well as the fact that there are things that we cannot control. Both sides of the spectrum make the rebirth worthwhile and we come to genuinely appreciate the unpolluted essence of its beauty. 2022 was undoubtedly the most profound and transformative year I have encountered in a while. I had not experienced so many first times in one single year. Not all of them were as deep and emotional as the ones I have described. Yet, all of them were meaningful even in the slightest way: I made my first alfajores, I took a Naturopathy class, I finally enrolled in my first Astrology course, I discovered a passion and talent for making crystal beads jewelry, I taught my first course in Portuguese, served as an academic advisor, I tasted and loved an artisan Petite Sirah, and I dared to publish my texts here at Universo Cotidiano. Just like the white lotus 2022 was a year of re-blooming.
2023, however, will be more like the Lone Cypress overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A year in which I want to intuitively embrace everything that surrounds me with curiosity, love, passion, an open heart, serenity, and an enraptured soul.
Image, " Not so Lone Cypress" (2022) by Andrea Villa Ruiz
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