What We Keep Alive
I have been thinking about what it means to keep something.
A photograph can preserve a moment. A name can carry a family connection. A familiar practice can bring a little of home into the life we have built elsewhere. But there are things we keep through the attention we continue to give them: relationships, knowledge, and the ways we care for ourselves and one another.
As we begin October’s theme, The Ritual of Keeping, I find myself asking what I treasure enough to keep practicing—and how to give it a meaningful place in my life today.
Growing up in Ghana, many of the things I now recognize as care were part of ordinary life. Shea butter on our skin. Food shared. Prayer. Family gatherings. At the time, I did not pause to examine each practice or what it offered me. It was familiar. It was what we did.
Years later, living in the United States, I have come to appreciate some of those things differently. Distance has given me another view of them. So has adulthood. I understand their value more, while also recognizing that how I carry them forward will reflect the life I have now.
Choosing to Stay Connected
During my return to Ghana in 2022, I joined my father and his older brother at a gathering that has stayed with me ever since.
The men there had all grown up in the same household in Agona, my father’s paternal village. After retirement, they had committed to meeting every first Friday of the month. They would pray, eat together, check in on one another, and look for ways to move their village forward.
My father and uncles keep their first-Friday commitment to pray, share a meal, and check in on one another, 2022
I loved how intentional they were.
Their shared childhood had given them a connection. Their monthly commitment gave that connection continued attention. They were making time to know how each person was doing and to consider what they could contribute together.
I took photographs as a reminder to myself. I wanted to remember that gathering could be an opportunity to stay present, to listen, and to take an active interest in the people around me. That lesson has remained with me.
They were keeping something alive through a practice that suited this stage of their lives.
Keeping with Grace
That gathering gives me a way to think about the relationship between tradition and modernity.
Watching my father and uncles gather, I saw how a familiar way of caring for one another could find a new rhythm as their lives changed. The connection began in a shared household; in retirement, they were choosing to nurture it through a monthly gathering.
That is part of keeping, too: recognizing what we value in a tradition and giving it a place in the life we have now. Sometimes we come to understand its wisdom more deeply. Other times, we adapt how we practice it, with grace for those who taught us and for ourselves as we learn.
When family members live in different countries, staying close takes a different kind of effort. We find ways to share in one another’s lives across the distance. We may also begin to understand care differently, learning that the generosity we extend to others can include ourselves. Even a familiar daily ritual can take on deeper meaning when we learn why it was passed down to us.
These changes call for grace on both sides. Those who taught us have experiences worth listening to, and so do we. We can be grateful for what they have given us while being honest about where we need to do things differently. When there is room for that conversation, tradition and modern life can learn from each other.
Through that conversation, we can better understand what we want to carry forward and why. Some practices continue to nourish us. Others ask us to reconsider how we learned them and whether they still offer the care we need. We can treasure what we have inherited while allowing ourselves room to practice it differently—or to unlearn parts of it—with that same grace.
I am interested in that conversation—the place where respect and curiosity allow us to learn from one another.
What We Give Our Attention To.
What has stayed with me is the time my father and uncles chose to make for one another. They had a shared history, and they continued to take a genuine interest in each other’s lives. I came home thinking about how I can bring that same intention to the relationships I treasure most.
This month, I am thinking about how that intention shows up in my own life—in the time I give to relationships, the care I extend to myself and others, and the things I am still willing to learn.
As we explore The Ritual of Keeping together, there is room for each of our experiences. What we carry forward may look different from one home or generation to the next. We can give one another grace as we discover what remains meaningful and how to make it part of our lives today.
What is one way of caring you grew up with, and what place does it have in your life today?
With gratitude,
Alice
Founder, MAAGO