Why We Celebrate
On one of those inappropriately warm days in February, we gathered on cushions outside. With kiddos curled into our laps, we listened as a new friend read the book “How We Say I Love You” by Nicole Chen - one of those books that Dolly Parton had just mailed to me. As she read the story, she also elaborated on the many daily ways her Mandarin Chinese family says “I love you.”
As she shared about walks to school with grandparents and meals made as a family, a peace fell over the more than two dozen kids and adults gathered together. I didn’t know when I awkwardly asked this new friend if she would read the book for us, how much she was missing her family that morning. At that exact same time, on the other side of the world, her family and friends were gathering in China to watch fireworks and celebrate New Year’s Eve.
This happened at one of our “Care-Free Fridays” playgroups. I planned on sharing the book. What I couldn’t have planned on was the wonder of what actually happened.
It’s in the midst of sacred mornings like this (because the attention that held us really did feel somehow sacred), that I discover over and over again that what so many people long for - especially millennial parents - is a safe space to ask awkward questions, honor life’s important moments, and find care for our body, mind and spirit. We long for a place where we can lean into support and where our kids can experience the kind of joy, wonder and awe that comes when you feel completely free to be yourself. A place to celebrate life’s important rhythms and feel seen in our celebration, to find inspiration, belonging and community.
We want to know about people who are different from us, but we’re often too scared to ask. We want to believe our own instincts about what’s right and wrong, what’s acceptable, what’s “normal,” what matters. And with the widening divide between the self we present to the public and the reality of this exhausting, messy season of our lives, we need a place where we can just show up as we are today and believe that we are “enough,” and help our kids believe they are enough too.
We believe Imagine Cincinnati can offer that kind of sacred place you need right now. You’re invited to just show up and help us make it happen.
“Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth” is another story shared by one of our families with Indian and Italian heritage. On this morning, Nona, their grandmother who was visiting from Italy, made us tea and cake like preschoolers eat everyday at snack time in Italy.
