04/12/2026
2026-03-29: How We Got Here
The afternoon celebration arrived before the spring, yet winter still lingered on bare branches above the thin ice sheets of the stagnant lake outside the recreation center. Inside, the water lacked the easy movement of the fish ponds we outgrew. No vessel appeared to deliver us from the storm, so we built our own.
What is a country without the identity of family striving to find its roots? Is it not the soil that waits for the seed, or merely a vast expanse of cold earth until a lineage claims it as home? Looking at the screen from the corner, the mother sees the spirit of the land she left, where the families who tended the soil still remain. For her, the true root remains where life first took hold.
Her child is born of the winter. The soil of this new country is but a residence until the first seeds of this new life are planted deep enough to survive the frost. As Angel stands among friends who only know the ice, her mother remembers a warmth that did not need to be earned.
We celebrated how we got here, lighting enough candles to ensure our hopes were bright enough to look back at our storms. The afternoon rests into evening. The sun sets on the horizon of our frozen lake, but that warm glow cannot be reflected in the ice as it was in the fish ponds we still strive to find.
