The Light of a New Year

As twilight settled on the evening of the 31st, I lit two luminaries to light the path for the new year.  They burned brightly through the night as T, JT, and I played card games, listened to a playlist of music curated by the boy, and laughed together.

The laughter was especially nice.  

As T and I prepared to climb the stairs and tuck into bed, JT told us that if someone had told him at the start of the year that 2020’s last day would be spend in our company instead of with his friends, he would not have embraced that news.  Then he told us that the evening felt good and right; that’s he’d had a good time with is and wouldn’t have spent it any other way.

In a 2020 that brought fear and uncertainty, that found the three of us being cooped up for months and occasionally feeling a little too close with one another, my son was on the mark in that observation.  In this year of so much loss, I will be forever glad of the extra time to watch him grow up far more than just one year signifies.  The last night of 2020 was a good one for counting my blessings as we looked to the light.

Sending Out 2020

I won’t be the only person who is glad to say goodbye to this year.  I almost wrote dumpster fire of a year because, of course, it has been that.  At that same time, so many people lost their lives in this year of years and it seems callow to dismiss the passage of this time when so many people and families have lost someone for whom time truly has passed forever.  I am profoundly grateful for my blessings in this year and I hope that I will always be able to see that light in the darkness that is 2020.

As 2020 fades into 2021, I am glad of so very much: My family and friends and our ability to laugh together; the blessings of jobs that put food on our table and give us a chance to make the world better than we found it; the harbor of walks in the woods and stacks of good books to be read.  I am incredibly grateful to be here as 2020 fades into 2021.  With that gratitude is a brightly burning hope that 2021 brings us more of the things that make life good: steady, kind, and measured leadership; the promise of science and a vaccine; and enough laughter and good will to see us through the hard times.  For all the storm that 2020 has been, I have hope that this nation and this world will safely steer into a safer harbor for 2021.  And so, as I have done so many times, I live in hope for us all as we say hello to a new year.

Just Start Somewhere

This blog has fallen behind in the last few months and as 2021 is squarely in my sights, it’s time for me to get a plan about whether this project goes on a more official hiatus.  I love writing here and over the years, it’s been a place to store pictures; memories, both happy and sad; observations and thoughts; and the details of my world.  It’s a reflection of my story and organizing and planning posts has always provided me with happiness.

Falling behind in 2020 is practically the perfect reflection of this unthinkable year.  While I’ve made the call not to be angry with myself for falling behind, I’ve also realized that I need to make a decision for moving forward.  At first, my thought was that I would move forward while also filling in from behind.  I tried this approach in October and November and that turned out to be an undertaking that teaching during a pandemic could not sustain.

And so I am at a crossroads: will I pause this project or seek to resume it, with my posting flaws on full display?  Helping disorganized middle schoolers to take command of their work is a big part of my job these days and when a child finds herself buried under pile of half-finished assignments I always advise them to just start somewhere and then keep moving.  Doing nothing, I point out, is not working.  Making a start is at least something.

It’s good advice and so today I am taking my own advice to just find a start.  I may complete and fill in postings from earlier in the year; I may not.  I will try to write on a regular basis in the coming year.  I start anew as this unthinkable year comes to a close, aware that there is likely a metaphor in that alone.  I start with the the hope that on a daily basis I can find the time to turn the thoughts I have into posts that are a meaningful snapshot of my life.  

It’s a start.

November 6

Today is my birthday and, like an extra treat, I had the day off from school.  It’s been such a tentative week, filled with hope at one moment and dread in the next so I slept in a bit.  Then, while I stood in the morning sun of the kitchen to pour my first cup of coffee, T came downstairs to let me know that Biden and Harris had taken a slim lead in the Georgia vote count.

In that moment, it felt like the morning sun shone a bit brighter.  The glow of that hopeful light has stayed with me all day.  The warmth of the day, the growing certainty in the outcome of this election, my confidence that help for our nation is truly on its way, has made for a very nice day.  After a nervous week, I can't stop smiling.  In this year of years, that alone is worth celebrating

Though I repeatedly told my students we would not know the outcome of this election on Tuesday, I hadn’t quite realized what that uncertainty would feel like.  I have spent the better part of the last four years convinced that November 3, 2020, would be the day we began the process to bail ourselves out of the disaster that is Donald Trump.  I never wavered in my confidence that he would lose re-election.  But as election day came to a close, though I knew we’d have to wait a few more days to know the outcome, for the first time since he took office I considered the prospect that Trump might win re-election.  

It made for a hard week.  Today, as the clouds cleared to reveal the blue skies of a Biden/Harris victory, I feel hope - real, true, and powerful hope - and I am so profoundly glad of it.  I sat in the backyard all afternoon and gloried in the feeing.  That's happy!

September Book Report: No Ordinary Time

All summer long, in preparation to once again teach 20th century history, I read (and re-read) books about the last century  One of the very best re-reads was Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 1994 Pulitizer Prize winning history, No Ordinary Time, about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Home Front in WWII.  

The book is carefully researched and thorough; the context of the Roosevelt story is present as the narrative flows well and the reader is never in doubt as to the challenges of the period.  Neither is there doubt about the power of good, capable, strong, measured, and steadfast leadership.  Though the 1940s did not receive (or demand) the transparency that Americans now need in their leaders, neither was the secrecy of the era about deception or a cover for the ignorant and selfish cowardice that I see and hear so often from our current president and his political allies.  

If anything, Franklin Roosevelt took care to provide Americans with the truth always accompanied with a sense that together we could accomplish great things, not just for one another but also for the world.  I miss that sense that our national purpose must be greater than ourselves.  

In the very last speech that he wrote, in April of 1945, as the war in Europe was coming to a close, Roosevelt wrote words reminiscent of his oft-quoted, 1933 reminder that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  This time writing, “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith,”  the president set the stage for the post-war challenges he knew his nation would face.  Roosevelt would never deliver the words in the form of speech because he died later in the day that he wrote them.  But the words are a solace and comfort today.  

I’ve read these words before but in early September, as I was ginning up for the start of a hybrid teaching school year and watching the events of our coming November election with anxiety-tinged hope, I thought again about our need to face fear and doubts with active faith.  The words have provided comfort throughout this month and, I suspect, they will give me hope for the rest of this crazy year. 

The Path Ahead

Lately, my favorite pictures to make with my phone are ones with a path at the center.  

It’s like my subconscious is cheering us on as we venture into the unknown.

I’ve worked very hard to remind myself to live in and appreciate the here and now.  These days. I’m able look toward the future’s uncertainty with a sense that new and manageable challenges await.  That’s a good thing, I believe.