At year’s-end I like to look back, remembering what happened, and look ahead, picturing what I would like for the coming year.
A Good Year
Despite challenges, 2021 was wonderful, starting with a new president who took Covid 19 seriously. On January 29 I had my first Moderna vaccine, the second shot in February, and a booster in November. I’m as safe as I can be. Vaccinations brought hugging to my family again. Until that happened, I did not realize how much I had missed our physical connections.
Then the 2021-22 school year began in person — no more zoom classes. How wonderful it is to be back teaching the second graders and seeing joyful children in the playground.
With fits and starts, my gym opened, first with swimming, then with the weights and exercise rooms. In a few more months I should be back (maybe) to the physical condition I had before Covid. I am one happy camper — just so long as I don’t think about the madness engulfing civilization.
The Larkspur Library Book Club reading for next month is the Nobel Prize-winning mystery, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk. Toward the end of the book, the main character Janina reflects on her future, “Newspapers rely on keeping us in a confused state of anxiety. Why should I yield to their power and let them tell me what to think.”
I totally agree! But would add that corporations and politicians also rely on keeping us in a confused state of anxiety. So, this year I’m trimming them back, turning down their shrill cries. In other words, I’m going to bring myself more of that thrilling feeling of relief we felt when the social media sites denied access to the previous guy, and we no longer suffered his daily escalating assaults. The weight was lifted.
Facing Reality
This doesn’t mean I’m turning away from the world. It means recognizing that our industrial culture is carefully crafted to pass most wealth to the powerful, and one essential component for that transfer is a diverted, anxious population. My plan is to recognize the messages but not let them get to my emotions. That’s not easy. On my two-days-delayed flight back from Christmas in Wenatchee, I felt like shouting at passengers walking around Seattle Airport with their masks on their chins. On the small shuttle bus from San Francisco airport to the parking lot, one passenger (a middle-aged white male) had his mask on his neck. I felt so angry, almost assaulted (which of course is exactly the effect he wanted). But I’m working on letting go, focusing on what I can change, not on things I can’t.
Individually we can’t affect climate change, pandemics, political leadership, corporate power, and the media. But we can do more locally to affect inequity and inequality. Last year I made large donations to local groups helping the disadvantaged and the hungry. I’ll continue that, and maybe join two or three nonprofit groups in addition to working with the Alzheimer’s Association and the schoolchildren. I like being useful and I like being appreciated.
More Joy
On the personal front — the “me” more than the “we” — I’m joining some walking groups, restarting covid-suspended ceramics classes, and looking at the local symphony, opera, and theater group schedules. I may sign up for some noncredit adult classes at the local colleges. (Maybe with more socializing I’ll meet a potential partner. Wouldn’t that be icing on the cake!)
This picture of 2022 looks excellent. I’m not getting worked up about the omicron Covid variation. It’s impossible to reign in corporate pollution and our consumption-based society, so we must live with a more dangerous planet, and constantly increasing change and uncertainty — physically, socially, and politically. Don’t let this make you anxious. It’s just the admission price to the culture we created and enjoy. It’s updating the full cost of living this way. Let go of your worries about an imagined future. Get on with living what is.
So, I’m feeling extremely upbeat about the coming year. True happiness. Sometimes I feel so good I could cry. I understand that when I’m gone I won’t miss living, but meanwhile what’s not to like? We should all be so lucky, conscious of this extraordinary experience we call being alive.
I never thought aging would be this good.
My love to you all.
Happy New Year and thank you for reading.
Barry
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