12:16 and 27

I have been twenty-seven for sixteen minutes. The square root of which is four. There's something somewhat spine-tingling about the reality that I am about to enter the end-phase of an entire era in my life and to embark on a new kind of journey, one that will move away from a self-centric world perspective and, perhaps, one into service, into listening, into giving of myself more readily to others. I find myself bringing the first minutes of this new year of my life with aches in my body and a sadness, tinged with hope, in my heart. My last day at the age of twenty-six was, remarkably, filled with meetings, with eyes to futures, concerns for wellbeing, and the themes of empathy, trust, community strongly running through the currents of conversation. I was in eight separate meetings today, stemming from advising, giving feedback, brainstorming, and sharing. Throughout many of those moments, I became aware of my own vulnerability, my own youthfulness, and yet felt the shifting of the cusp from something to another, a slight, almost invisible, supersensible experience that spoke to me and said, "And now...."
 
For years, I imagined that twenty-six would be the year. It was the ideal year, in fact, the year when I would be old enough to rent cars, travel, seem adult and grown-up, and have stability in my life. It was to be a magical year. And it was, though not, I think, in the ways that I had imagined it would be. It was a year of death and birth; of new discoveries and fond farewells; it was a year of plenty, abundant in ways that I think I am still struggling to undertand. To spin through the year, so that I may, in some way, let go of it, I will explore the months.
 
In January, I began my twenty-sixth year fresh off of the North American Youth Initiative Meeting, having had innumerable seeds planted that would greatly alter the course of my future. I celebrated my birthday, the last semester of courses at Reed having just begun, with my dear friends in Portland at a restaurant, then after surviving a chocolate war with my sister, returning home only to be sick for several days on end. I loved it, the fever especially, because it meant I was changing! February quickly beckoned in with classes and a strong push on my thesis second chapter. March unraveled itself with a trip to Pennsylvania, which would inspire the course of the rest of my year, for a week to explore Soltane; I returned home, only to have to fly to Massachusetts when Lila, dear soul that she was, passed away after a great life-long struggle with cystic fibrosis. March flew by in the blink of an eye, and I found myself huddling back at home to get through a grueling month at work, coupled with restlessness in my soul and exhaustion in my body. April came and suddenly I found myself rushing from the PNASA conference, where I had presented a paper on Erdrich, to fly across the continent and the Atlantic to Germany to bid my grandfather farewell. After burying him, I found myself tending to his grave, the first to nestle my hands into the rich soil that now protected his remains and wondering at how softely life sometimes could tread.
 
May came and went with my thesis Oral Boards being a marvelously wonderful experience, and finally grasping a diploma in my hand. June was consumed with work as the Executive Director of WeStrive, playing with the girls, wrapping things up at AFS-USA and then flying to California to see my sister for a brief few, fiery days. Off I flew to Sweden with Riana, where we sang to cows, I bid my love adieu, and found my heart consumed with questions, hungering for something that would meet me and create something new and exciting with me. A brief stint to Norway, and then back to California, back to Portland, before loading the remaining unpacked pieces of my belongings into my car, along with my mother and friend Adrian, for a ten-day cross-crountry roadtrip. 
 
During this time, I fell in-love with the skies and watched the clouds and colors for hours as they shifted and shaped themselves into magical images of light and dark.
 
August, I found myself rounding the curve of the hill and cresting into Soltane and thinking, "And this is now home." My arrival was soon a whirlwind of scrubbing walls, meeting people, learning new skills and preparing for the arrival of our students, six incredibly sparkling personalities who shine in my heart, and light up my life. I was blessed with questions. September bled into October and I found myself wrestling, struggling, wondering, questioning, seeking. I found myself speaking at the AGM in Spring Valley, and organizing a budding meeting for 56 people from around North America to explore the importance of the meeting between individuals, between groups, within groups. October soon became November and then I was off to Switzerland and then Sweden for meetings, for encounters, for conversations, for the struggle of once more meeting myself and asking, "What is my task?"
 
And then December came. I was exhausted. I was confused, and then, one day, the light went on and my heart soared and my mind raced and a new voice emerged: the creator, the thinker, the muser, the listener. Something shifted. And tonight? I find myself thinking that this year, the twenty-seventh year, will be one of deepening, of strengthening, of connecting. Of understanding more my task, my purpose, my role, and taking that through the breath and into the soil and then seeing what grows. And so I am here. I have been twenty-seven for thirty-seven minutes which is a super prime number. I honor the year as a possibility-filled one and I am filled with gratitude for the strength of my voice, for the gentleness of my heart, and for the desire to love, to be loved, to give, to collaborate, to create, to let go, to be a student of a life, a woman on a journey, a quest, for being me, as I am, to the best of my ability, in this moment.
 
I welcome this day, with all its struggles, with all its possibilities and I am filled with hope, filled with sadness, and filled with vision.