#FSPnot-so-in-focus

“Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht”

BY GRACE

“Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” - Yiddish Proverb roughly translated: “Man Plans, and God Laughs”. In my own universal spirituality I tend to think of it as folx plan, and the universe chuckles. Any way you might think of it through your own lens, the saying holds true. I made plans for #FSPfocus this holiday season. As with Thanksgiving I planned to continue decolonizing the table. I planned to talk about food poverty and provide ways for us all to give back. I planned. The universe chuckled. 

My wife’s family planned, and Covid-19 took a good long evil laugh. One of our nieces got coronavirus. Another was exposed to a positive testing person. We had a well planned, well thought out plan for distancing and visiting. It was blown to shreds literally the day before. Thankfully, our one niece is on the mend. The other did not end up showing any signs and she and her family have tested negative. 

Talk about making a big shift. We had already made the shift to try and stay as safe as possible whilst still visiting. Now, we had to shift yet again to a very scaled back celebration. My great food focus plans became a blur. It was now about shifting to make this rubbish year’s holiday the best it could be. 

If you listened to the holiday show, you know that this time year is a mixed bag for me - as I imagine it is for many, if not most. In addition to the Coronavirus bwahahaha-ing our plans, there’s the hard truth that hits me in the face every year that I no longer have a “side” of the family to drag my wife to, roll my eyes at an uncle’s terrible jokes, and make jokes under my breath to that cousin that has just as snarky a sense a humor as I do - you know all the things that make us love hate our family gatherings. My immediate family has passed and my extended family can’t handle having a queer gal at their holiday table. My family was a bunch of ‘characters’ as we say in the south, but they were mine, and I do miss them - both the dead and the living. 

To top it all off the thing that made all of that ok has been taken from me this year with Covid-19. I have no option to be with my chosen family, doing the things that we have made our own traditions. Having left fundamentalism and the holidays no longer holding such a strong religious significance for us, we worked a while to find that way with a good bit of trial and error. When we landed upon it and began celebrating our way year after year, I’ve not had such joy since I was a young child unaware of all the dysfunction going on around me, because my grandmothers who raised me shielded me, made sure I had a good Christmas, and excellent fudge.

Just as I think the holidays are done with their fits of laughter, the new year looks at them as says, hey hold my laughing gas cocktail! A beloved animal I have adored, who has made my traveling adventures and my life so much the better, passed away. I learned on the eve of the new year that my godfather had passed of Covid-19. We haven’t been close for many years. My first thought was a memory of putting my hair bows in his hair. Unfortunately, it was quickly followed by the memory of his judgment. When I came out he was head of the posse informing me I would be going straight to hell. Another event to add to the mixed bag. 

Knowing that the universe will belly laugh at a new year’s resolution plan, I’m tearing that list up in favor of a practice of intention. I look back belly laughing myself at the many plans I made before I was truly aware of myself, and comfortable in my own skin. Now, I tend to think of positive options rather than resolutions based on negative messages of not being good enough. I list my options that do include goals, and I use them depending on my life in this moment, prioritizing them for the present. This is a way of life, not a thing I fail and then have to wait a whole year to attempt once again, after beating myself up for not having achieved it yet. 

If we’ve learned anything at all from 2020, it’s that we can’t predict the future and we can’t truly plan for it. We can make provisions, be wise, and hold our hopes loosely. We can take the options set before us in the moment and practice living with our full senses engaged in the now. We can set our intentions for love, for peace, and for goodwill toward our fellow human being in 2021 and every year.