New Year, 2023
2022. What can I say? The last two months have been a struggle. Some days I feel like I am holding onto a thread. This is a reminder to myself and to all of us that we must take care of ourselves, first and foremost. Our physical health. Our mental health. I end this year bereft of energy and will but buoyed by the love of family, by friends near and far, by music, drama, and laughter, and all the beautiful distractions from my chorus and theater brothers.
I traveled to Hawai’i in the spring. It was my family’s first time on the Big Island. They got to walk our over-grown forested property of fruit trees, ohia, and weedy albizia, where dozens of dangerous, delicious wild pigs fat on macadamia nuts roam, and mosquitos hum in the marshy silt. I wanted to show them that here someday, there will be a house on a lava hill where we will spend our golden hours, and we’ll pray to the goddess Pele, as I do every night, that we are spared from her work. I designed that little house and began exploring possibilities with a contractor. In Hapuna, I saw my father lit up as he plunged himself onto a gentle wave, a flashback of his youth that a lifetime of work had dimmed, and then hearing my mother scream for us to help him, and we all laughed. She is not a fan of water. And we ate, a lot, and celebrated our parents’ 49th anniversary in a luau, where we got rained on. It was a perfect day. If my sister B and our corgi Morgana and Danny were there, joining me and my parents and other siblings, R, G & Z, with their spouses, it would have been complete, and if they were, and there was one day of my life I had to live over and over, that would be one. A piece of heaven.
I wrote for an artist cohort. We performed at the Legion of Honor in June where I danced behind Danny as he sang and narrated. Then ended the year with our chorus and its holiday concert. B proclaimed that we exceeded her expectation. Danny thought it was a good one and it went well. A few days later we sang the same to a room full of grateful seniors, many of them LGBTQ, in Santa Rosa. To see an old woman cry to one of our carols was worth the drive.
I made my appearance with MEMO in our swim meets and found that I have gotten stronger, though, after a bout of meningitis, I’m afraid it’s time to rebuild. I learned to play mahjong and win, and mahjong night with our friends Dan and Jeff has become a thing, and in all lightheartedness, winning against Dan brings its own kind of joy. I connected with advocates for Ilokano and other minority languages and established a new nonprofit and met new friends. I flew internationally for the first time since 2019 and experienced Singapore and Thailand.
We said goodbye to my grandmother. She slipped quietly in the night at 93. What a life. She got the cards she got, and she played them to the very end, like the director of her own Lifetime movie. And the woman had hardly any wrinkles. That’s what I want. She had an equanimity that I envy and try so hard to emulate, though I can’t seem to wriggle my way out of my constitution.
I am uncertain what 2023 will bring. But I suppose that’s every day. There are work plans and travel plans and plans within plans. I am prioritizing commitments. 2022 is my last year with the GAPA board, after 6 years. I’ve done what I set out to do. I am mulling others. Family matters most, and I want to stay close. Most of all, I want to stay in the present, like my grandmother would have done, and pray for more perfect days and a little sweet pea of hope.