FULL-SPECTRUM COLOR

Today is our last full day in Mexico. My husband and I have spent nearly two weeks traveling throughout this vibrant country — from Mexico City to Oaxaca to Cancun and Tulum — doing our best to take in the sights, sounds, and smells of Mexico with very little Spanish on our tongues. And it has been a powerful lesson in the goodness of humanity, particularly the warmth and kindness of the Mexican people, but also the incredible complexity of human communication. As my ode to Mexico, and in keeping with the theme of this blog, I thought I would pay homage to our adventure with a few colorful reflections.

There is a certain irony to spending a brilliantly warm and sun-filled Saturday in late April attending a convening on the Science of Burnout. But there I was, feeling a bit burned out myself from a week of travels and deadlines and a never-ending list of to-dos, sitting in a grand auditorium beneath the grand chandeliers of the International House at the University of California, Berkeley, ready to absorb the day’s insights. And I wasn’t disappointed.

For many Christians around the globe, today is celebrated as Good Friday, a holy day of prayer and reflection, a day of remembering the crucifixion and death of Jesus. This particular Good Friday, April 14, 2017, America dropped a bomb on Afghanistan for no apparent reason. Bombs in exchange for gassing. Bombs to send a message. I cannot help but see a sad and somber parallel here. It is my hope, in this our age’s most uncertain hour, that we find a way to be a bridge for each other over the troubled waters of our time.

On Tuesday, August 16, 2016, my father, Theodore “Ted” Wazenski made his transition from this life to the next. He was 83 years old. Son of Polish immigrants, he grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania and later made his home in north Baltimore, where he and my mother (also Polish) raised three children — a elder daughter, a son, and me the youngest daughter. He died in Annapolis, Maryland, where he and my mother had settled in the later years of their lives to be closer to their son and his family and to receive care and support from their local senior care residence.