Lindsay Chong

It’s that time of the year again: “winter” in California and party season back home in Trinidad and Tobago, a contrast that evokes in me a special brand of homesickness which Trinidadians have dubbed “carnival tabanca.” While I’m at Stanford sloshing through the rain in my Payless boots and oversized blue poncho, my parents are at home getting glammed for a Carnival fête.

Birthdays. Cake. Pizza. Ice cream. Glitter. Balloons. Just the very word conjures images of hyper, sugar-drunk children, exhausted parents and the ever-present, enduring idea of hired Disney princesses, who may or may not stage potentially traumatic crises in the middle of a darling child’s beautiful, optimistically perfect day.

Almost exactly 10 years ago, I was in the fourth grade. It was December, and excitement was in the air: We were about to start a unit on Greek myths. Well, maybe the excitement was just because it was almost winter break. But for me, as Mrs. Johnson opened her large yellow storybook with the crinkling plastic cover, the excitement was in that moment — in the story. As 2018 comes to a close, I find it hard to believe that it’s been a full decade since that formative moment in my life.