A Suitcase Heart

“They should tell you when you're born: have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.”

—Gabrielle Zevin.

I've been writing letters in this journal for the past year. I can't wait to share them with you!

Dear Friends,

First, please let me introduce myself. My name is Tonia and (as we all are) I am a lot of things. I'm a wife and a mom, a daughter and a sister. I'm a learner and a teacher. I'm a girl with a suitcase heart. I'm a writer. A lover. A hoper of hopes. I'm an artist and a dreamer. And I am enamored by life's small pleasures. My maternal grandmother, who was from Saint Lucia, taught me to speak Patois and instilled in me an appreciation of both elegance and sport. From my paternal grandmother, an immigrant to the United States from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, I gained a love of water and learned to delight in a well-seasoned piece of fish. These little details are the part of my journey through life I treasure most; my grandmothers taught me to live a beautiful life and if you’ll allow me, I’d like to share what I’ve learned from them with all of you.

One of the things I miss most about my grandmothers, having lost them both in the month of January, albeit two years apart, is the way they made my birthday (in February) feel like the occasion of the year. From them I also learned to love—and to truly celebrate—birthdays. To acknowledge the accomplishments of another turn around the sun and to, for at least one day, live life out loud. Each had her own style. Germaine, my maternal grandmother, had a scrawling script and would send handwritten cards accompanied by something that reflected her taste and was a reminder of how she thought about being a woman of grace and substance in this world: delicately scented French perfume, a jewelry box, a soft cardigan. 

Germaine understood luxury in her bones, and her lessons for me over the years were always simple: Take care of yourself. Be kind to your yourself. Are you getting exercise? Drink a lot of water. Moisturize your knees and elbows. She paid for my first trip to Paris when I was 17 and was the only person interested in the tiny tattoo of the Muses Melpomene and Thalia that I got on my ankle while I was there. Her sense of self, her surety of who she was in the world every day helped me develop my own. I wish for each of you to have that same sense of self, a sense of comfort in your own skin and with who you are every day single day. I hope in the times to come that by sharing some of what I learned from Germaine over the years, she will also inspire you to live as she did. Fully, and with heart. 

My paternal grandmother, Amy, never learned to read or write. Nonetheless, every year I would receive a signed card—always late, much to my delight, as it extended my birthday beyond the day itself, and also much to the annoyance of my Virgo mother (seriously, don’t get her started). Amy would also send a small gift, something she knew I had been wanting: a particular book, a pair of shoes. Practical and useful, things I would enjoy but she could not. From Amy, I learned a lot about what it means to be selfless. About what it means to give with both hands open. I was a theatrical child, a creative spirit, ever the star of my own narrative. Amy taught me the importance of learning to play a supporting role. Without ever being a tempering force on my spirit, she taught me how to channel my energies into lifting up others. This ethos is central to who I am, and I hope that this, too, is something I can share with you. Perhaps together we can lift each other up and begin the work of healing our little corners of the world.

I've been thinking about this project for a long time, but especially over the past three years as I've been writing letters to my son who lives far away from me (more on that some other time) and does not often have the opportunity to write back. Somehow, in the wake of another birthday and amidst all the turmoil in the world, it just seemed like the right time to get started. As I mentioned before, I am a lot of things. One of those things is an archivist. For those who aren’t familiar, archivists work with things like documents, photographs, and digital files (including everything from this blog post to your email and text messages) to make sense of them in the present and preserve them for the future. One of my favorite genres of materials to work with when I was a practicing archivist was correspondence. In archival collections, it is rare to have both sides of a corresponding relationship. Usually, a person keeps the letters they receive, but does not make a copy of the letters they send. It is also very rare for two people to keep letters from one another (love letters tend to be a beautiful exception to this general rule) or for letters that have been kept to end up in the same place at the same time. The end result is that we only get one side of a conversation preserved for history. Toujours Tonia acknowledges and honors that complicated, lopsided sense of history while also joyfully celebrating the art of letter writing.

I’ll keep writing you letters, dear friends, and sharing with you the little things in life that bring delight and wonder. Perhaps sometimes I’ll write of sadder or more difficult things. Certainly, I’ll write to you about my grandmothers, about my suitcase heart and its travels, about birthdays, and taking care of your skin, and shoes, and books, and what it means to be a creative spirit. I hope you’ll find the time to join me on my adventures, whether they be big or small, and I hope you’ll find value in the ways I have learned to make my life more beautiful. I can’t wait to tell you everything.

Until next time, I am joyfully yours—

Toujours,

Tonia xo