Clap When You Land
Hey, it's Sunday Morning.
Clap when you land. That's what we do when we get home. A well-worn tradition that speaks of joy and the blessing of safe arrival.
In her novel-in-verse Clap When You Land, Elizabeth Acevedo captures this ritual with such grace: "We clap when we land / in the Dominican Republic. / Not because we are rude / or jarring. But because we are alive."
It's an act I embraced wholeheartedly.
Why?
Because there, the clapping means something deeper. There, it's an echo from the rows around me. A shared relief, a recognition that we made it. Again. Sometimes, that alone is a miracle.
Because there, I land as a son, a brother, a friend. The runway feels like sacred ground; the sunlight rushes in like a welcome embrace. Because there, I am not just arriving—I am returning. VolvĂ!
But here in New York, I've built something, too. A home of my own. I landed here with questions and stayed in search of answers. And while we don't clap when we land here, I still feel the quiet reverence of arrival.
Maybe that's what fluency is. Not choosing between here and there—but knowing how to speak the language of both. How to belong to more than one place without an apology.
I used to think the clapping only belonged to the Island. That it wouldn't make sense anywhere else. But now I wonder if it's not the act itself, but what it marks.
The exhale and the moment you let your shoulders drop. The silent prayer of thanks. Yes, we're okay. The invisible thread tying who you were to who you're becoming.
And maybe I do clap, even here—just differently. Maybe it's in the way I pause on Sunday mornings. The way I take the long way home. The way I catch myself smiling at the early signs of spring. Or hearing, "Toasted bagel with butta', coming right up!"
I came from a place that taught me to celebrate arrival. And I made a home in a place that taught me arrival comes in many forms. Both are true, both are mine, both can be yours, too.
Small applause. For life, for being alive. For feeling again.
Where do you arrive and feel most you?
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