Happy new year!  It came to me a few weeks ago that when this site is quiet, it usually means that my life is loud.  These last six months have found my family and I taking it up another octave and moving at a pace we hadn’t ever experienced together until now. 

We left the village in Belgium at the end of August and moved to New York.  (Need I say more?)    I started teaching in Brooklyn within nine days of arrival and Dominique took over everything having to do with domestic bliss.  The first few weeks were intense, and to add to the intensity we got the fabulous news that we are expecting another baby.  So after being here for a month I was juggling lesson plans, papers, family drama, morning sickness, fatigue, grumpiness, Serene, her wonderful daddy, and trying to find a health provider that took my then pending insurance plan all at the same time.  I look at it all now and smile (Always easier after the first trimester) because I’ve made it through those processes.  I was far from graceful during most of that period: I stumbled, cried, complained, and got extremely flustered and angry on a few occassions, but I also learned a great deal.  I could ask for help when and where I needed it, I didn’t have to pretend that I had everything at school under control, I could-- and did-- ask colleagues for advice when I was stuck or afraid that I was going in the wrong direction, I gave myself permission to be slower than I should have been sometimes, and I asked my Godfather a lot of questions.  During one of the most enlightening conversations I’ve had in my 33 years on this planet, I explained to my Godfather that I have always had very concrete goals like get this job, see that country, get published in that journal, read there, read that and that has served me rather well up until this point.  Suddenly I found myself with a wonderful array of experiences to look back at but I wasn’t feeling like I wanted to keep making to do lists out of my life.  He said, “Well then make joy and fun your goals.”  Nuff said.

With goals like joy, fun, and fulfillment, I am giving permission to the universe (yeah, I said it) to fill in a lot of the blanks.   And I have been having a lot more fun.  The term at school ended on a very high note, I started taking yoga classes again, I have been enjoying watching—ok, no chasing—Serene all over the apartment, the words my husband bring a smile to my face, I have a glimmer of a social life again, and I am really enjoying my pregnancy.

The moral of the story?  I don’t know, you figure it out.  I’m gonna go make a smoothie or have fun or something. 

One love,

Ekere