The Pros and Cons of Twenty Twenty-Four: A Reflective Timeline

Walking beneath the latticed dome of the Louvre Abu Dhabi— a kaleidoscope of shadow and light.   Flying home for my half-sister’s wedding, during a wintry January in Madison, WI. Her matrimony on Tết— nuptials and the New Year intertwined like the savory filling of crispy egg rolls.                        Staring at long black hair flowing down the supple back of a tattooed woman in a Pattaya laundromat during Eid break in Thailand—           Eating lunch on the hood of a Land Rover, in the middle of the Serengeti— an unbroken circle of life journeying on the open savannah, the air thick with the taste of dust and rain.   Discovering my sister is expecting twins— a boy and a girl, the news unfolding in stages like delicate origami.

Glimpsing my estranged father at my sister’s wedding —unspoken words spanning a schism only we can see.   Staying in the Al Ahli ICU, elevated cardiac enzymes. Sliding into the deafening hum  of the MRI chamber —the results, thankfully, fine.           Following signs only I could see, bumbling my attempt with you —your hand withdrew from mine.

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Nurturing the web of relationships of family and friends over a long summer in the U.S—   Imagining retired life back in Winona as the crinkly caretaker of a used bookstore, slowly mummified by the aroma of dusty page—   Driving across the U.S. with my youngest son before his deployment— relishing the silence between us.

Revisiting after  another year away,  everyone a year older —I continue as incremental  Rip Van Winkle.

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Arriving in the boiling heat of Qatar  for my eighth school year cycle—               Checking my email— Subject line: Congratulation! You have been accepted as an  English Language Specialist.               Crawling into the Great Pyramid of Giza— a one-way journey to the afterlife. A reminder: make my heart lighter than a feather. Working on a business idea— a pivot from my current work life. (For now, that is all I can share.)

Spending another night in the ICU, elevated enzymes, again. Stress test: Normal. —Doctor: “Maybe that’s just your norm.” —Enduring a friend’s scathing words, sundering our friendship. Flying across the Atlantic, my youngest son deployed to Kuwait. On the same side of the world —yet now a world apart. Swinging America back, the Hegelian dialectic[1] —Trump 2024. —Yelling at more people  in my dreams this year  than entangling  with long-haired beauties.

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Moving forward another year— another chance to err or thrive; wandering through the kaleidoscope of shadow and light.

Overflowing from  another year of things unsaid —my subconscious brimming.

Iterum Atque Iterum

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^[1] “An interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition (thesis) is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently contradictory proposition (antithesis), the mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third proposition (synthesis).” Source

Note: Due to WordPress limitations, I was unable to preserve the original timeline format from my Word document. Below is the text as I intended it to appear.

Photo by Kajetan Sumila on Unsplash