By Gaïna Davila
Does your home feel like the spring of hope–or the winter of despair? In a few short months our world changed dramatically: we must stand 6 feet apart, stay in our homes, wear respirator masks, and move all social gatherings online. Who would have thought Charles Dickens’ opening lines would describe a global pandemic? None of us would have!
For us, some days are easier than others as David and I navigate working from home, managing our professional tasks along with caring for a sweet and active 10 month old baby boy. Snapshot: Baby with wooden blocks crawling to and fro, Mom on multiple Zoom conference calls trying (but failing) to keep the volume down, Dad packaging “contact-free” coffee...latex gloves and all!
Despite the challenges, we’re walking these unprecedented times out with a posture of hope. You see, we’ve been married for 5 years, and over the course of the past 1,825 days we survived two years of strict movement restrictions (“sheltering-in-place”) while serving abroad as a diplomatic family in South Asia, followed by catastrophic natural disasters in the Eastern Caribbean, where we also served, during Hurricane Maria and Irma. We learned that we can't stop the hurricanes, however, we can be the palm tree that bends with the wind and snaps back up. Why? Because we choose to practice resilience for ourselves and for our loved ones.
As such, we want to speak to you, our community, through a medium that gives both artistic form and substance to the coming months. We’re curating themes that will, hopefully, challenge your perspective and invite you to join us in journeying towards a more intentional and meaningful way of living, whether in the midst of peaceful times or a global pandemic.
Here’s to welcoming a spring of hope with arms wide open! It’s our hope that this Instabook and future iterations will speak to you exactly where you’re at in each season of your life, perhaps even with a cup of kafe in hand!