The Human Bean

A Letter from the Listening Room

Real Human Bean by Enzo Surin INK

Last night, during the Listening Room, I shared a poem that is older than my oldest son.

That surprised me when I said it out loud.

Some poems stay with us long enough that they become witnesses to our lives. They outlive versions of ourselves. They watch our children grow up.

Earlier yesterday, my oldest and I were talking about soccer.

He wanted to know why Haiti doesn’t have a better World Cup team.

It’s the kind of question children ask because they assume the world is arranged fairly.

I told him that national teams don’t spend nearly as much time together as professional clubs do. And unlike other countries, Haiti doesn’t have the same continuity of players growing together, training together, and building a shared rhythm over time. Our players are scattered around the world. They come together only occasionally.

But that wasn’t the whole answer.

Haiti’s national team hasn’t even been able to play in Haiti since the assassination of the country’s president five years ago. The country has been in another period of freefall—one greater than the last, which is saying something for a nation that also survived a devastating earthquake and has spent generations surviving one crisis after another.

And yet, Haitians continue.

Even qualifying for the World Cup under conditions like these feels like an extraordinary achievement.

Several years ago, I started a project with my boys centered around something we called the Real Human Bean.

We designed it together as a reminder that growth is rarely glamorous. A bean pushes through darkness before anyone ever sees it. It survives pressure underground long before it breaks the surface.

For us, it became a symbol of resilience.

I put the Haitian flag inside it.

I printed stickers, tote bags, sweatshirts. I carry one of those bags almost everywhere I go. Sometimes people stop me and ask about it. Other times they simply read the quote printed on it and continue on with their day.

I always hope that, for someone, those few seconds become enough to keep going.

I think I may start making those bags again this summer because some reminders are worth carrying, and this one still feels like it has work to do.

But I’ve also been asking myself another question.

Why do people have to keep being so resilient?

Why is resilience so often celebrated instead of changing the conditions that make resilience necessary?

With the latest decision denying many Haitians the refuge and safe passage they desperately need, that question feels heavier than ever.

One of the images I shared last night during the Listening Room was of a rescue boat in mutiny.

When there is a mutiny on a rescue boat, it becomes almost impossible to manage the rescue. The people meant to be saved can end up drowning while everyone onboard tries to regain control.

And that is what it feels like in this country right now.

It feels like an impossible image to hold alongside conversations with your children.

There are so many “whys.”

Eventually I find myself returning to a different question.

Not Why is this happening?

But What keeps causing this?

Those are different conversations.

Eventually, you reach another point.

You get tired.

I’m tired. And I’ve come to believe it’s okay to be tired.

Not everything can be solved by the people who are suffering from it. Not everything belongs to those carrying the weight.

Maybe resilience isn’t meant to be a permanent state.

Maybe resilience is something we save for the moments that matter most.

For making the World Cup against impossible odds.

For gathering together to read poems.

For raising children who still ask honest questions.

For believing that, despite everything, our humanity is still worth protecting.

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A Human Bean,

Enzo