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Sunday, 31 August 2025
On this day of your life
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I believe God wants you to know ... ... that there will
come a time when you believe everything is
finished. That will be the beginning. Louis L'Amour said
that, and he was right. We must let it go.
All of it. It will look as if your life is over, and that everything
you have worked for has collapsed. Actually, its
construction will have just begun. It is so trite, I
know, but I must say it anyway. I have to say it. "For every
door that closes, there is another that opens." This is the door
you have been looking for... but you could
not hope to find it while you were locked
behind the first one. |
Saying Yes to the Universe (OM)
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Empty Cupboards & Mango Ice Cream: an Old-School Lesson in Having Faith.
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I come from a long line of brave, independent, strong women.
I was lucky enough to know possibly the strongest of the line: my great-grandmother Lea.
Born in 1898, she lived through World War I, The Great Depression, then World War II. She survived smallpox but lost a baby to it. She also contracted and survived tetanus. She lived through several revolutions, natural disasters, fires, hard times many times over—not to mention, four husbands.
She was generally grumpy and didn’t talk much, but somehow we understood each other and got along .
She had a plethora of witty, albeit caustic sayings and had a knack for knowing exactly when to use them. For example, when talking about how family and friends disappear when you’re going through a rough patch, she’d say, “To others, our misfortunes are just rumors.”
When a man took care of some heavy work she’d say, “At the end of the day, they are necessary to have around.”
When describing something that wasn’t in great shape but still got the job done, she’d say, “A broken, dull knife will always be better than using your fingernails.”
But my two favorite sayings were: “There are always bones in the wolfs’ den,” and “On the days when there is nothing to eat, we will eat the best.”
They didn’t make any sense to me, but as it turns out, my great-grandma not only had a multitude of sayings, but she also had a million stories to tell. She told me about a particular day when the cupboards were bare.
“With four kids to feed, and no hope in sight, you have to have faith and get creative.”
While thinking about how she would manage feeding the family, which was no small feat for a single mother of four in the 1940s, a mango fell from the tree—a towering tree that took up the whole front yard. To be clear, a mango falling isn’t a really big deal, it happens all the time, but in this particular case, a light went on.
She looked up and saw a beautiful bunch of the ripe, delicious fruit. At first she thought, well okay, we can cut some up and they can eat them until their stomachs are full. But then she thought about how hot the day was, and how nice it would be to have ice cream for dinner for a wild change.
There were exactly two cans of evaporated milk, some homemade vanilla extract, a pound of sugar and—ding, ding, ding—a manual ice cream maker. Every respectable home had an ice cream maker, and on that day it would come very much in handy. All she needed now was some ice and salt.
In her pocket book she had just enough to buy ice. With the equivalent of 50 cents, they sold it in blocks just down the street; further down at the grocery store, she could buy a pound of coarse sea salt that she could sign for the 10 cents it cost.
All that was left to do was get five or six mangos from the tree. That would be done by the housekeepers’ teenage son. With a pile of rocks, a slingshot, and a precise aim, like a sharpshooter, he got them down. Sometimes two would fall, sometimes he’d miss, but in the end, about 10 mangos were had.
Next was to make a nectar with the mango pulp. This was done by peeling and cutting off as much of the fruit as possible, from the skin and the seed.
After doing so, my great-grandmother would press the cut fruit through a fine mesh sieve several times to extract as much juice as possible from the fibrous flesh. She’d then add sugar, enough to get it syrupy, then a spoonful of homemade vanilla extract, and finally the two cans of thick, creamy evaporated milk.
Now the mix was ready for the ice cream maker.
If you’ve lived long enough, you may remember them. They looked like buckets made of wooden slats, and had a smaller tin bucket that fit inside with a mechanism on top that held everything together and a handle to churn your ice cream. After blending all the ingredients , most certainly by hand, you’d fill the sides of the bucket with chunks of ice and a good handful of the sea salt poured on it. Then all that was needed was to find someone to do the churning.
In most cases, it would take several people, usually the older kids, and the housekeepers son, alternating turning the handle over and over. Before the ice cream was ready, the bucket had to be refilled with ice and salt maybe three times, and by then, everyone’s arm felt like it was about to break off—but they just knew it would be so worth it. The laughter and anticipation made an exhausting task funny and bearable.
When the ice cream was finally ready, no one could contain their excitement. The pain and time it took to make it was suddenly forgotten at the sight of gorgeous, creamy, saffron-colored ice cream served in fine china with her best silverware, because, why not?
Another saying she had was, “When things are bad, they are totally bad—so live it up.” Everyone got a bowl and everyone dug in immediately. Mango has a strong, pungent, distinct taste and is delightfully sweet but invariably there would be a twinge of saltiness that came from the droplets of the salted, melting ice that would land on it from the vigorous churning, and that made it all the better.
I wasn’t there then, but growing up in the Caribbean it was common to have these “sorbetières” as we say in French, and making ice cream with the fruit from the yard—in my case, acerola cherries, guava, and of course, mango—was always something to look forward to on a hot Saturday afternoon.
With time, electric ice cream makers took over. Although so much easier, everyone had to admit that the ice cream from an electric maker was never quite as good. There’s something about the deliciousness of it being handmade that goes beyond just taste.
My great-grandmother told me that having ice cream for dinner became a regular thing. It wasn’t always mango though. Sometimes it would be soursop, grenadine, or even orange ice cream. It all depended on what fruit was in season.
Ice cream being the best meal when there was nothing else went much deeper than all the effort it took to make. To me, it was grace under fire.
Sometimes not having anything meant having the turkey or rooster that was being fattened for Christmas in July. Or opening the boxed ham that was meant for a special occasion. And there were always the tins of cookies and candies from Germany and France that came with a great-aunt from her travels to Europe on a steamship. All in all, the main thing I took away is that my great-grandmother came through, time and time again. Just as her mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and so on had always done.
Lea lived to be 92. Although I was just 20 when she passed, she had instilled in me the notion that you have to have faith that things will always work out, no matter what.
Having lived in Haiti now for the past 30 years, and having gone through countless revolutions, natural disasters, being married and divorced, being a single mom to two incredible kids, and now living through a horrific civil war, I hold on to this notion tighter than ever.
It has never let me down.
So for good measure, I never hesitate to use fine china for no reason, or to have homemade ice cream for dinner, with a sprinkle of sea salt just because. And so should you.
~
Forget “Finding Yourself”—the Real Work is Meeting Ourselves in the Places we Fear Most.
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I’ve always been a deeply introspective person, and if I’m honest, often a fearful one too.
For much of my adult life, I unconsciously let fear dictate how I moved through the world.
Without even realizing it, I let self-doubt consume me, box me in, and quietly shape my choices. I often worried that my fears and insecurities would prevent me from taking risks worth taking. That I’d aim small or self-sabotage just to avoid disappointment, rejection, or making a mistake.
Like many of us, I’m deeply concerned about the direction the world is taking and fearful of the uncertainty it brings. But for me, the loudest fears haven’t been in response to external forces. They’re the quiet ones, I whisper to myself. The ones that play on a constant loop in silence.
And while I can’t control global politics or the chaos around me, I’ve realized my power lies in how I respond.
I accept that fear will always be present. It has its place; it alerts us to danger and protects us from harm. But it also shows up when we face the unknown. When we compare our path to someone else’s. When we cling to the idea of what we think we should be. Left unchecked, fear builds on itself. It becomes louder, more convincing, more limiting.
But I’ve started to understand that fear doesn’t have to be a barrier. It can be a compass.
Recently, I’ve started to reframe how I relate to fear. Now, I recognize that just like failure can be seen as an opportunity for learning, being fearful can present an opportunity for being reflective, transformative, and courageous. I learned that our fears shouldn’t be disregarded, but at the same time, they must not be allowed to take charge or go unchecked.
Fears need to be harnessed.
It’s not about eliminating our fear. It’s about finding the courage to move through it and allowing its energy to propel us forward. I no longer see fear as some divine warning or intuitive red flag. Most of the time, it’s the ego making noise, desperate to stay in control. It tries to convince you that discomfort equals danger. But the truth is, discomfort is just unfamiliar. And unfamiliar doesn’t mean wrong. It just means change.
Now, instead of letting fear paralyze me, I let it inform me. I listen to it, then channel it. I let it sharpen my awareness and fuel intentional actions.
To build that courage, I set micro-goals. I celebrate small wins. I surround myself with people who love me enough to be honest, people who hold me accountable and remind me who I am when I forget. My goals don’t guarantee success or control. But they help me respond with grace and clarity. They remind me that while I can’t control what happens around me, I can shape what happens within me.
Fear, when harnessed, becomes fuel. It empowers us to stretch, to try, to reach for things that once felt out of reach. It also reminds me to move with care. To be intentional with how I spend my time and energy.
I’ve started limiting how much of the world’s noise I let into my daily life. I take breaks. I walk. I practice yoga. I focus on what I can control. I lean into simple routines that bring me back to myself. Even when things don’t go as planned, I don’t spiral like I used to. I remind myself that even minimal progress is still progress.
Then I pivot. I learn. I lean on my people. I keep going.
This mindset has helped me walk through doors I might’ve missed if I’d waited for certainty. It gave me the courage to apply to graduate school. It helped me step into entrepreneurship. It’s helped me let go of the fear of disappointing others and finally set boundaries that honor who I am.
Not long ago, I let go of the need to label everything, to assign stories, to ruminate endlessly. I stopped obsessing over the why—why is this happening, why me—and creating narratives to make sense of what’s holding me back. Instead, I began focusing on the what: What can I do to shift this feeling? What steps can I take to move forward?
That shift changed everything. It helped me feel less stuck. It gave me a way to move forward, even when the full picture wasn’t clear.
These lessons have reshaped how I move through the world. I show up differently now, for myself and for others. I’m a better friend, partner, daughter, sister, yoga teacher, and business owner. And when you stop resisting fear, you free up space. Space to breathe. To grow. To begin again. You start to embrace the “is” of things. You learn to live in the gray, not as a failure of clarity, but as a marker of deep self-trust.
We talk a lot about “finding ourselves,” but what if the real work is meeting ourselves in the places we fear the most? What if fear is simply an invitation to come home to ourselves in a new way? Fear doesn’t get to lead anymore. But I’ll keep listening to it, learning from it, and using it as fuel.
And I encourage you to do the same. Because at the end of the day, I’d rather walk into the unknown, trembling with purpose, than stay stuck in a comfort zone that no longer fits.
~
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