On a personal level, this year separated us
from the routines that used to structure our lives.
It separated us physically from the people we
love. It took away most of our plans. It imposed
a lack of things we never imagined having to
be without. We lived through social distancing
and panic buying. We spent hours sanitizing
food and seemingly benign surfaces. People we
knew were dying: alone, with loved ones being
unable to comfort them or subsequently grieve
in customary ways. Our holiday celebrations
were spent in front of screens. 2020 tested our
resolve in more ways than one: It modified any
illusion we might have had about our being in
control.
My 2020 Daily Planner is so different from
the Daily Planners of the preceding years! Since
March, I see no scheduled theatre shows (just a
few marked cancellations) or museum visits, no
Cinema Club monthly meetings, no folk dancing
every Tuesday evening. There are no listed
trips (just a canceled flight to New Orleans), no
parties, no family reunions. So much of what I
planned didn’t happen. Instead, my 2020 Daily
Planner reveals names of stores that deliver
groceries, scheduled telephone sessions with
patients, scheduled outdoor meetings with
family members and close friends (oh, so rare,
and of course with all participants masked, and
interactions hindered by physical distancing).
I also see in my 2020 Daily Planner phone
numbers and addresses of friends and family
members who relocated for the duration of the
pandemic, phone numbers of hospitals where
loved ones were taken, and there is detailed
information regarding a Zoom funeral. For
me, the most painful personal experience of
2020 was that Zoom funeral where I eulogized
a beloved friend. It was heartbreaking and
heartfelt, grievous and comforting. It reflected
the weirdness, wariness, and weariness of the
year 2020.
Was there any light in the midst of the
darkness? After all, light does tend to slip in
through the cracks of all that is broken, and it
did. 2020 was a year in which we discovered
how resourceful we can be. It was a year of
cooperation and sharing of resources – despite
physical distancing, a year which generated
some pride about managing to live through
it all. The pandemic forced us to slow down,
stop rushing, learn to be still, travel inward. It
taught us to find beauty and pleasure in simple
happenings – the small things available to us
right here and right now: sunrises and sunsets,
the soft breeze of summer on a daily walk, fall’s
short-lived shades of fire, the trees adorning
Earth with their changing colors, a full moon
emerging from behind the clouds, a sweet memory,
music from times long gone, an intimate
conversation, an act of generosity – received
or offered, feeling loved, a moment of being
dazzled. We just needed to pay attention: keep
our eyes open and our hearts receptive to any
light slipping through.
At this point, though, I am kind of done: It’s
time to say good-bye.
GOODBYE 2020: Along with you, I
accomplished yet another rotation around
the sun, added another year to my growing
collection of years lived. For my birthday, a
few months ago, a friend sent me a humorous
card. It says: “I am not adding this year to my
age: I didn’t use it.”
Actually, though you were challenging, and
I didn’t use you as planned, I am not only
adding you but also assigning you a place of
significance in my repository of memories. You
impacted me deeply. Day after day, I woke up
to some bad news. All too often, I felt exhausted,
frustrated, sad. You provided me with a
hard reminder of what I have already learned:
how fragile and tentative life is. But you also
helped me discover strengths I didn’t know
existed. You confirmed that I can grieve losses
deeply and yet continue to, using the poet
Pablo Neruda’s words: “fish for the light.” I will
try to hold on to the good that came out of you.
I will also try to come to terms with the losses
without resentment. After all, the problems I
faced were manageable compared to a host of
much worse predicaments I could have ended
up in. Still, I am completely ready to let go of
you, pack my memories and move on...
WELCOME 2021: I count on you! I hope
you are going to be a good year. Not perfect,
just good enough for all of us, individually and
collectively. I am prepared to do my best as
we start a journey together, and I hope I find
strength to meet the challenges you are likely
to place on my path. I do have a few wishes
though: May you mark the end of the plague.
May the pandemic ebb away during your duration.
In the course of your days, may we get
back to our pre-pandemic lives: free again to
assemble, to touch, to hug, to share food, to
celebrate with family and friends, to resume
togetherness that is not mitigated by a screen.
In the course of your days, may we be free
to breathe maskless without risking anyone,
spend time with others without ensuring six
feet of separation, see each other three-dimensionally,
rather than two-dimensionally – as
flat images on Zoom screens. May we recover
and remember that the world operates more
effectively when we are less divided, more
cooperative, kinder, more compassionate.
May we resume the “old normal,” but never
again take normalcy for granted.
Dear still uncharted 2021: We are welcoming
you in crisis mode. This changing of the guard
is happening in the midst of a pervasive sense of
uncertainty, as the world is struggling to emerge
from the biggest global crisis of our generation.
With you at the gate, our country is dealing with
major political, social, and economic problems.
What is in store for us? What challenges,
opportunities, heartaches, or happy occasions
await their turn to be? When the clock strikes
midnight, how shall we toast you?
On my desk, a blank 2021 Daily Planner
is still untouched, waiting to be filled. With
what? How will it look 12 months from now?
My empty Planner will not foretell... I dare to
hope that my still-unfilled 2021 Daily Planner
will look better than its predecessor. Quoting
T.S. Eliot:
“Last year’s words belong to last year’s language.
And next year’s words await another
voice.”
Dear 2021, are you going to be a better
year? Will we learn from the challenges of
2020? Will we explore better ways of doing
things? Will we alter old ways that have
failed? Will we revise where we missed the
mark? I pray that we succeed to align our lives
with our values, become better at the art of
living, muster strength to let go of what can
no longer be, uncover courage to embrace
life as it is, gain wisdom to focus on what
matters, and find foresight to make the year
gifted to us count.
How beneficial are daydreams? One of the
most popular Israeli lyricists, Ehud Manor,
wrote the lyrics for a Hebrew song called
“BaShana HaBa’ah” (which means “Next Year”
and which was translated and transliterated into
English as well as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese,
Polish, Greek and other languages around the
world). The lyrics were based on a daydream:
a fantasy Manor had of his family of origin
united again, sitting together on the porch of
his childhood home in the village where he
grew up. He envisioned this reunion at a time
when his parents and one of his brothers were
no longer alive, and the vision became the basis
for a song filled with longings and hope, a song
that is a poetic prayer for a better future, a
song I remember singing passionately along
with my parents and with my friends during
difficult times:
“In the year that will be,” Manor wrote,
“we’ll sit out together, under cloudless blue
skies, and no longer live in fear...” “Wait and
see,” he promised himself and others, “just
wait and see how sweet life can be in the
coming new year...”
Well, at this time of transition, let us dare to
imagine... Let us conjure a time of finally bending
the Covid-19 curve, a time when an effective
and safe vaccine will be available to all, a time
when we can sleep soundly at night without fear
of waking up to some Covid-related disaster.
True, we are not there yet. We still have more
to endure. But better days will return. Quoting
again Wallace Stegner, in Angle of Repose:
“Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility
obscured the outlines of reality.”
So accurate! Hope is always ahead of reality,
pointing out what is possible in spite of the
barriers faced. Our best bet is to hold fast to
hope, not let her out of sight. In my end-of-year
meditations, I try to visualize an image created
by Alfred Lord Tennyson:
“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year
to come, whispering, ‘it will be happier.’”
My toast for the coming year? I wish us
all – wholeheartedly and with intention – a
gentler, kinder, safer, more user-friendly new
year. I wish us the ending of the plague, the
blessings of life, peace – outer and inner; and
I dare let hope run wild by adding glitters of
joy, awe-inspiring moments, a sense of wonder,
and a dose of magic.
December 2020 ¢ NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER 9