In the summer of 2018, I had a consulting gig to travel to Haiti, visit some of the businesses there, take and edit photos, and write content all for a buyer in the U.S. It was a dream assignment for someone who had made six other trips to Haiti since 2013, knew the landscape, knew the businesses and their owners, and dreamed of living in Haiti at some point.
There is absolutely no way I could have known that would be my last trip to Haiti. As of this writing, the news continues to get progressively worse. Most of the people I knew in Haiti have left, both Haitians and Americans, if they were able. The ones who have remained, by choice or necessity, are scared. One of the businesses that I spent a lot of time with that summer of 2018, released a statement late last week that they were keeping all of their employees at home for their safety. They employ hundreds of people. Needless to say, that financial model is not sustainable for them. Other businesses are running sales of goods they already have stateside to keep the lights on, and many are also running fundraisers as they attempt to keep their employees safe and fed. Again, neither of those is sustainable for long. Also, the global community appears weary of giving, and not just for Haiti. The more 24/7 news we have access to, the more we know (and are absorbing) all that ails this world. Our souls simply were not built for it.
I spent the last month of my sabbatical last year in Norway. While there, I wrote to a friend of mine at one of the organizations I had gone to Haiti with over the years and shot a Hail Mary. I asked if there was any way whatsoever that I could piggyback on one of their team’s trips to Haiti, or if they could recommend an organization that was still traveling in the country. I know that sounds especially insane in light of the more recent news; I had just finished working on a chapter I had written about what Haiti had meant to me, and my heart felt especially tender towards both Haiti and my memories there. Haiti healed me in so many ways. I have friends there. I didn’t want to confront the fact that I could never go back. Plus, Norway had felt like a safe space to deal with some loose ends, and my heart knew Haiti was one of them. A big one. My friend wrote me back a long and lovely email updating me on the latest in Haiti, but unequivocally squashing any thoughts I had about traveling to Haiti. My heart was crushed, but not surprised. I added Haiti to the list of things I needed to emotionally deal with which is code for I needed to grieve it.
If there is anything I learned on my sabbatical last summer, it is the number of things I had put off dealing with until then. In my first months of therapy years ago, I had developed a description for the things we were confronting in my childhood and my life. I nicknamed them grief bombs and described them as tiny square boxes (think Tiffany blue box) wrapped up in brown, kraft paper with a red string tied around them and in a perfect bow on top. Since therapy, I have not felt so overwhelmed by undealt with trauma, goodbyes, loss, grief, etc. I had been holding it all in, and suddenly with the beautiful landscape of Norway before me, it all had the time and space to leak out.
I believe this is the beauty of sabbaticals in whatever shape or form you take them from a weekend to two weeks to three months. It is the art of stepping away from your everyday life that gives your whole self - mind/body/heart/soul - the room and time to catch your breath. To reset. To take a moment out of the matrix.
I am looking to write and share more about what I learned on my sabbatical. Not simply what I did on it, though those stories are fun. I want to share the deeper lessons that I learned from stepping away from the busyness of my life. I also look forward to learning more from others who have taken sabbaticals. I hope we can create a community here around those of us who want to learn more and want to share. I am going to use the hashtag #sabbaticalmindset for any posts I write on sabbaticals with the hope that it will make them (and what I hope will be shared in the comments) easier to find.
Also, if you can, please say a prayer for Haiti, for the Haitians who have endured so much, and for all of those trying to help. If you are interested in links to organizations that I know and trust so that you can consider for future purchases, and/or donations, please message me or drop a comment. I am happy to share those with you.
Below are two photos I took in Haiti back in 2018. These are mugs entering the kiln for drying. Even before being painted, they are beautiful. Just as they are.
Love,
Heather
Heather this is so good !!
I love Haiti as well and have had to grieve not being able go back
So I can relate !!
I love this. My own sabbatical meant allowing myself to feel, to not just think about life lessons, grieve and process mentally, but to emotionally process, allow myself to feel. It was not easy. It’s still not easy. I am still holding on to some things, not yet feeling them. But the sabbatical time continues to motivate me to continue this new pace, work towards this new rhythm, so that I feel.
Thank you for your vulnerability and sharing.