Reflections on a Year Gone Awry
- Jan 21, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 15
There was so much I was going to do in 2020. Once-in-a-lifetime things, like attending the Passionspiele in Oberammergau, or watching my daughter spread her wings with a summer internship in Germany, or cheering for my other daughter as she triumphed in her senior year soccer season and walked across the graduation stage at the top of her class. I was looking forward to the freedom of the empty nest and the time with my best friend, the man I married nearly thirty years ago.
This was also going to be the year of graduating to being a professional writer. I know, I know: I already am a writer. I have published a book. Books, if I count the volumes of motets I edited back in my musicology days. I have a completed novel and a strong start on the non-fiction project, something that last year was just a twinkle in my eye. Still, it is disappointing to end the year without having achieved some of the goals I set for myself last year at this time.
It’s easy to get caught up in what went wrong in 2020. Looking around me, I see suffering and anguish in my town. People whose small businesses have perished, people whose loved ones have perished, people embittered by the hatred and antagonism that flourishes in times of particular stress.
And yet, there have been some good things to come out of this train wreck of a year, and I am preserving them here to pay tribute to the gold found among the dross.
I spent more time writing in 2020 than in any year since I wrote my dissertation in 1997 and 1998.
I wrote a book proposal to sell the non-fiction project, which is a significant endeavor in itself.
I didn’t quite reach my goal of reading twice as many books in 2020 as in 2019, but I still read 46. AND I managed to remove a few that had been sitting in my “to be read” stack at the start of the year. Unfortunately, I also added a few, so the stack probably remained the same size.
I baked a lot of bread. I successfully tackled the Miche Polaine from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice and I found a new family favorite, the Pane Francese from Ciril Hitz about which I posted earlier.
I got to bond with my new high school graduate, who rode out the last six weeks of the year at home because her university was entirely online.
I also got to spend time with her best friend, a delightful young lady whose family circumstances (involving an out-of-state move) would have left her otherwise sleeping on a couch. Instead, she took up residence in a spare bedroom and became my bonus daughter for most of November and December.
After hip surgery in July put the kibosh on my dream of running another marathon — or half? or 10k? — I took up swimming. Our indoor pool is two blocks from home, and it reopened for laps in September. I joined the local Masters swimming club, swallowed my pride, and took to the water, going about as fast as my own kids could swim when they were six. Four months later, I can swim 2500 yards in an hour, and I am planning to swim an open-water race in July.
I got to spend a lot more time with my husband. We’re fortunate to enjoy each other’s company, even when stuck in the same house day after day.
I got COVID, as did all of my immediate family, but we all recovered. The only long-term issue I’ve experienced is that I’ve lost part of my upper vocal range and a little bit of lung power, but that may also be a side effect of turning fifty.
I dropped weight using Noom. How much, you ask? Um, at best I was down eighteen, but then December hit, with its candy cane cookies and hot buttered rum and warm crab dip and seafood lasagna and pecan fingers and buckeyes and red wine and, why not, white wine, and English toffee. . . you get the picture. Multiply those by a week with no pool to swim, and there you have it. So let’s say down fourteen, but there’s always tomorrow!
I turned fifty. The women in my family started a tradition of a big trip to celebrate big birthdays (last year was New York for a 60th), but the best we could do was a rented house in Door County, and attendance was sparse. Still, it was a beautiful weekend with some of the beautiful women in my life, and we all learned the important lesson that kayaking on Lake Michigan in choppy water isn’t a good option for those prone to motion sickness.
As Rotary president, I helped spearhead a drive for the Rotary Club of Baraboo to help get the Baraboo Homeless Shelter up and running. We raised funds to sponsor the laundry room at the shelter and helped with painting to get the Pathway Home ready to open. This past Monday was the first night of the shelter, and now twelve homeless people have a roof over their heads while they get back on their feet.
AND: I was Rotarian of the Year for the Baraboo club! This my reward for being the one to figure out how to hold our meetings on Zoom during the pandemic.
So it has been a good year in many ways. I’ve learned to appreciate family more and to be grateful for the good things I have in my life. I’ve given my “time, talent, and treasure” to help out people and organizations in town that need help. I plan to keep it up in 2021, to read or listen to 52 books, to swim my race, to get an agent and get a book under contract, and to do more for those who need it most.
This morning, as I finally finish this post begun weeks ago, we have turned a page in our democracy as well. For me it is a weight lifted to hear the words of our new president, urging an end to the “uncivil war” that has gripped our country. I am hopeful that the new administration has a plan for vaccinating and fighting COVID. I am encouraged by the return of transparency and press briefings, and who would have thought a person would ever have been grateful for press briefings?
So here’s to the dawn of a new year. May it bring all of us health, safety, prosperity, and most of all, civility and kindness to others.
What are your moments of gold from 2020? What good can you preserve from this past year, and what are your plans for 2021?
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