Oh, 2016

This year, I wrote a monthly book report on the last day of the month.  I managed to fulfill that goal and there is a book report coming your way tomorrow.  So I’ll take the day before the end of the year to note my reflections on  2016.  

It somehow seems fitting to try and bring this painful year to an early close.

For the record, 2016, you were a real pain in the ass.  In hindsight, the Blizzard of 2016 may have been the metaphor that set the stage for 2016.  There was only one big snowstorm in my neck of the woods last winter, but it was a doozy.  In so many respects, 2016 was a typical enough year.  But when it made a punch, it was playing for keeps.  The stunning, horrible, no-good election of Donald Trump to be the American president has to be the worst event of the year from my point of view.  That it happened because notions of facts and truth seem to have been replaced by “I read it on the Internet” may be the enduring bad news of my life time.

2016 reminded us that racism and violence go hand-in-hand and are ever-present in our nation.  We learned that accomplished women can be dismissed by unaccomplished men and women who’ve drunk the patriarchy koolaid.  In Aleppo, Syria; the Sudan; the Congo; the Philippines, and other places we’ve learned of the depths of human depravity and the limits of the world’s willingness to help the powerless.  

Ugh.

Though I’m eager to see the year’s bad news come to a close, I remind myself that 2017 will bring the inauguration of an unqualified, self-absorbed Cheetoh Kleptocrat to the presidency.  I fully expect 2017 to be the year Americans discover that we no longer rule the world and, worse than that, perhaps aren’t even qualified to govern ourselves.   

I try to live on the optimistic edge of the universe but 2016 has made that a challenge.  But I prefer to live in hope.  I know so many others who will join us to do the heavy lifting to make sure that hope prevails.   And so I choose promise over fear and look to 2017 with hope in my heart.

I Live in Hope

The violence of this week has been unsettling and demoralizing.  Just when I feel our nation may be able to make progress, we seem to take violent steps backward.  I’m at a loss.  

My world view has always been to live in hope.  I know of no other way forward.  But a week like this one can make it hard to find that hope.

For me, nature’s unrestrained beauty is restorative.    So I visit familiar trails and search for hope, fragile and weary though it is.

If I look long enough, it is there.  And so I live in hope.

January Book Report

For the last ten years, I have kept a list of each book that I have read, mostly because I find lists pleasing and also because I like to remember when I have read a particular book.  I often re-read books at specific times in the year and knowing when I’ve read a story before helps me to provide some context for the different pleasures I find in the world of familiar books.

And make no mistake about it —— books are one of my greatest joys in life.  Over the years, books I have read and the characters in those stories provide companionship and comfort; context and advice.  They are a big part of the person I’ve become as well as the person I want to be.

For 2016, at the end of each month, I plan to post a review of one of the books I have read in the month.  Most will be new books, some will be old favorites.  This month’s book is Celia’s House, written by D.E. Stevenson, an English author from the mid-20th century.  I have most of Stevenson’s books and love them all.  Celia’s House was first written and published in 1943.  It’s the story of a rambling old house in Scotland and the family that lives there.  

Unfailingly, Stevenson’s novels are happy stories filled with charming, regular people.  Celia’s House is in that tradition.  The novel begins with a detailed description of a home in Scotland as elderly Aunt Celia contemplates how much she loves the landscape of her family home.  Upon her death, she leaves the beloved home to her great-nephew Humphrey on the condition that he raise his family there and ultimately leave the house to his own Celia, a daughter yet-to-be born.  

Humphrey follows instructions and the novel unfolds over the next 30 years as another generation of family grows up and loves the home just as Aunt Celia did.  I like my novels to have happy endings and all of Stevenson’s novels fill that requirement.  Along the way, they are filled with quirky, cheerful, regular people; enjoyable reads every time.  This one was no exception; a happy read that reminded me of the power of home.

Election Day

New Jersey's gubernatorial races are off-year affairs.  In 2009, we New Jersey elected Chris Christie to the governor's mansion.  Today, he will likely be re-elected.  He's likely making a bid for the presidency in 2016, to which I say good riddance.  Chris Christie is a loud-mothered bully and I am not a fan.

Since he became governor, neither my property taxes nor my income taxes have gone down, though he promised they would.  The state's unemployment rate is north of 8% and higher than when he took office in the midst of the recession.  We still don't have enough street lights and the potholes are large enough to swallow a car.   We've used federal money for Sandy relief that has mostly left the middle class to struggle on their own.  We spent more than $10 million on a special election held just three weeks ago so that the bully didn't have to appear on the same ballot as Cory Booker.  Having failed to set up our own healthcare exchange, we are instead part of the federal health insurance exchange.  While neighboring New Yorkers are signing up for insurance, people in this state are struggling to get informed and get health care.

We do have legal same-sex marriage but that's despite the fact that the Governor vetoed the bill to legalize it.  If Chris Christie is the best moderate that the GOP can drum up for 2016, then the Republicans are in big, big trouble.