Time, I feel, is not so much marked by the measurement of a hand slowly rotating around a clock, but rather by events and one’s physical surroundings. My life up until the past year always flowed to a certain rhythm marked by the seasons, holidays, and school year. This provided a more or less foreseeable pattern of how life would unfold and be lived.
I grew up in the Midwest, which means that for me the year was always divided into the four seasons and the corresponding holidays and events celebrated in a given season. Winter always included freezing temperatures, snow, big coats, hats, gloves, scarves, hot cocoa with marshmallows, familiar Christmas tunes, nativity scenes, Christmas lights, a break from school, and family time. Christmas was the cornerstone of the winter season with Christmas mass, visiting family, waking up earlier than any other day of the year to anxiously see what presents were waiting under the tree, decorating and eating Christmas cookies, and watching classic movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story. I loved the winter scene of fresh fallen snow covering everything in a sparkling blanket of white, so clean and pure, the thrill of sledding down a hill or participating in a snowball fight, and waking up early after a big snow fall hoping and praying school would be canceled so I would have a free day with my friends to enjoy all that the winter season had to offer. Despite the freezing temperatures and slippery roads, I loved winter.
Then came spring with anxiously awaited warmer weather, plants and flowers growing and blooming in all their glory, and the school year winding down. Spring was a time of enjoying the outdoors again after a cold winter inside. It was a season of new life after winter’s hibernation. Spring brought with it rain showers, thunderstorms, and celebrations of Easter and my birthday. Being born at the end of March the question was always, will the weather be more like a lion or a lamb? in trying to plan activities. The Easter season celebrations were marked with colorfully dyed eggs, baskets full of sweets including my favorite: peeps, pretty new dresses, Easter mass, and a big meal with family to celebrate. Spring brought excitement, beauty, and a fresh breath of new life to the world around me.
As spring turned to summer the most anticipated change each year was the end of the school year. Summer meant 3 free months without classes or a thousand extracurricular activities. Midwest summers are known for their humidity and in my younger days that meant many days spent at the pool or cooling off in a sprinkler in the yard. Summer was hot and sticky and full of spending time with friends or going to day-camps. In college summer was still marked as a time free from school, but now with the new responsibility of work. No longer lazy days to just have fun with friends, summer meant days full of work trying to save money to help continue pay for my college education. Summer was marked by outdoor concerts in the park, parades, and fireworks celebrating our Independence Day. Summer was flip-flops and tank-tops, sipping lemonade in the shade, and outdoor grilling with friends and family. Especially in my childhood, there was a lot of fun and freedom in summer, a break from the regular routine.
But summer always had to come to an end and the school year started anew as the weather began to cool off and the leaves began to change. I absolutely love the autumn mostly for the way the leaves light up the trees in bright yellows, oranges, and reds and then slowly fall creating the perfect cushion to build up and jump into, or that gentle crunch as you walk down a sidewalk filled with freshly fallen leaves. Autumn was a time to slow down a bit, to prepare for the winter season approaching, and to celebrate our gratitude. Thanksgiving has to be one of the best holidays ever in that it is a giant meal with the ones you love giving thanks for all of one’s blessings. Gathering together and sharing a meal has always been one of my favorite and most sacred events, and in the Thanksgiving holiday this is exactly what is celebrated. And of course the excitement of Halloween each fall in trying to prepare a costume and pick out the best houses and neighborhoods to visit for candy. Or in the later years going to Halloween parties where we still appreciated the excuse to dress in costume and celebrate, or scare ourselves at a haunted house, or watch scary movies. Pumpkins, turkeys, leaves, costumes, candy, family, and football all spoke the season of autumn into being.
However, all of these familiar sights, sounds, smells, activities, and schedules were dramatically altered when I chose to come to Peru as an Incarnate Word Missionary. Out of school for the first time in 16 years I was jumping into a whole new unknown rhythm of life far away from classes, meetings, social events, and friends. Not only did I leave behind the life and schedule of a student, but I also left behind every familiar season and marking of time. Traveling to the southern hemisphere to a completely foreign country and culture feels a lot like falling into a rabbit hole or passing through the looking glass. Time has disguised itself as I pass through days and moments trying to make sense of this strange new world.
My beloved four seasons (which were an initial requirement in the college search years ago) have converted into two: summer and winter. But they are not the summer and winter I have known all my life. All that I once knew and lived seems backwards as Christmas and New Years are celebrated in a skirt and tank top, going to the beach, and preparations for a potential 4th of July grill out will take place in jeans and sweaters, eating inside. There are no extremes, no precipitation, no storms. The biggest natural threat is an earthquake. It is a difficult feeling to describe unless you have lived it, but all of the changes in how the year unfolds with its seasons, weather, holidays, and celebrations have made it quite difficult to feel completely whole, or comfortable, or connected to myself and all those I love back in the U.S. I remember reading once about the importance of rituals and traditions in remembering ones history and understanding who one is in connection to their family and community or culture. I appreciate that insight so much more living in a foreign country where none of the familiar traditions or surrounding environments are present.
On the one hand it might be for the best that there is a certain disconnect in making it easier to be far away from friends and family and all of the familiar events and seasons that they are living. But it’s so strange to talk to those back in the States and compare weather or think about what I would be doing if I lived there right now. In a lot of ways I feel like the past 10 months have been this crazy whirlwind dream where time stood still and I was opened up to a multitude of new people, experiences, food, music, holidays, and celebrations. Time did not pass as it used to, and thus I am left with a feeling that time didn’t really pass at all, although I know it has. I wonder to myself how long it really takes to feel integrated and comfortable in a foreign environment? Five years? Ten years? And where does the balance come in of always seeking to integrate who one was, is, and is becoming?
I love that I have been blessed to share in another way of life, to celebrate new holidays and old holidays in new ways, to constantly have to ask “what are they doing?” or “what is that?” and “why?” I know that every lived moment of this experience will be with me always, just as every moment we live is with us always, and wrapped up in each moment are the people, places, sights, smells, tastes, laughter, tears, and kisses. And I will bring Peru back to the U.S. with me, remembering and celebrating these new customs, traditions, holidays, and celebrations whether it is visible to others or not. The same as I’ve done here in holding with me all that I’ve been and done, whether it is visible or not. I know that eventually I will return to my beloved four seasons and traditional holiday celebrations, but I also have a feeling that they will never be quite the same after this seemingly time-less year of the backwards, strange, new, and overwhelming. So the hope is, despite feeling incomplete or unsettled, that all of this, all that is life and the lived experiences that accompany it, aid me in being fully human and integrate me deeper into the mystery of life.
This is quite long and that seems like a good place to end. Blessings to you all wherever you might be in the world and in the moment you are living and the memory you are making.