Restless last night, observing my brain, how it wants to grasp for optimism in every turn like gold bricks. Trying to get facts from reliable sources and listening to my gut because my brain is tangled. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time or presume that what I have processed would be interesting to anyone. But perhaps it can create some relief as these words poured to me from the place where nature and nurture collide. I want to acknowledge gratitude to my Gritty New York City, our heroes, the healthcare workers on the front lines and for those whom staying at home for the greater good is a real risk of abuse, especially women and children.
When I am distressed my mind looks to History. In this case, the one of my family. On my mother's side, she has been living on the same ranch her family has lived for six generations. There is even a journey before that starts with the Earthquake of Lisbon (1755) that made my ancestors relocate to the Azores islands, then to the colony of Portugal in the Americas in the late 1700’s, to finally in 1850 the journey of a widow Ana Baptista Souza who settled with her three children in the place my mother calls home, in “Queguay Chico” Uruguay. From that time on, my family has endured, Civil War (La Guerra Grande), numerous draughts, dictatorship, foot and mouth disease in 2001/2002 (when the greatest sources of income for the country and my family and all the families I knew came to null that year).
But it was a particular night, that keeps on coming back to mind. It was the Spring season, I was maybe as old as my son is now around four. The shearing of the sheep’s had happened like it does every Spring. But there was a huge storm that day. I saw my parents running in and out of the house all night. The sheep were getting stuck in the mud and freezing to death. They spent the whole night rescuing as many as they could. I saw my mother tired and crying at the end of the ordeal. They lost half of their flock. While my father, a self made man, ever the entrepreneur, said don’t worry we will rebuild. In that to evoke my father’s wisdom “we will rebuild”... - Gabriela Hearst
