It is a widely known fact that New Year’s Resolutions don’t work insofar as they don’t change people’s beliefs or behaviors resulting in long-term lifestyle changes; rather, they set us up for more disappointment for not living up to our (probably too high) expectations. I make them anyway. Or I at least think about making them, knowing that I might not succeed. Surviving 2020 took resolve so why not extend that into 2021?
I’m sleepy but happy today because last night I stayed up until 1:00 playing Settlers of Catan with my step/bonus kids. We had a nice family day, the first time all six of us (N. and I and the four “kids”) were all together in one place since last January! Today just four of us drive back to Ohio from Northampton, Massachusetts, where we visited M. and L. This was also my first interstate trip since early January 2020. We had many firsts this holiday season.
Even though I moved to Muncie more than 10 years ago and own a house there, this was my first Christmas in Muncie. My daughter and I leave Muncie as soon as fall semester ends and we don’t come back until spring semester begins. We go to Ohio to be with my partner/her dad and sibling(s), and then on to Minnesota, Texas, and/or Arizona to be with extended family. We wouldn’t travel to see our parents this year due to Covid-19 and our daughter wanted to spend Christmas in Muncie. She misses our house there and was curious to see if Santa would come to Muncie. He did! On Christmas Eve, I made cod, potatoes and creamy braised white beans with toasted bread and a lot of salt and garlic. I tried to make “rice mush,” my Norwegian-American family’s Christmas Eve tradition for generations, but it wouldn’t cook for hours and then it overcooked. I blame it on my electric stove. Gas stoves are better! We Zoom-ed with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and their girls and opened a few presents. On Christmas Day, we Zoom-ed with more family, opened more presents, and basked in the warmth of the fireplace. A. played with her new Lego set as her 21-year-old brother, K., slept in the chair and N. put together a jigsaw puzzle and I did yoga. N and I went for a pre-dinner walk, when the sun was still shining and temps were in the low 20s. We enjoyed the view of the breaking ice on the White River and noted the eerie quiet and stillness of the city. Besides one guy on a bike, we saw no one.
Since Thanksgiving, M and L have been urging us to come visit them in Northampton for the winter holidays and they finally convinced us that we could do so safely. Unlike our parents, who are in their 70s, M and L are young (24 and 16) and Coronavirus cases are half in MA what they are in IN and OH (or in TX, MN, and AZ, where our parents are). We got tested before we left (negative), drove there in one day, stopped as infrequently as possible, and when we did stop, we rushed in and out of the nearly empty rest stops as quickly as possible, always wearing masks. Besides seeing my two bonus kids, who I have missed, and meeting their housemates and seeing Northampton for the first time, I gleefully went hiking where there are lots of pine trees and a depth of quietness in the forest that I rarely experience, plus real elevation gains and scenic vistas, not like the dinky inclines in the Midwest. The house we booked on Airbnb was a treat, a place to break the monotony of our own house, and glimpse briefly into the lives of others. I deduced from the photos and books in the house that the parents were from India, and that the father had likely passed away and that he had likely been an English professor (there is remarkable overlap in the books on this family’s book shelves and mine!). The woman has an amazing green thumb, and her house plants have inspired me to expand my small collection of indoor plants into something more substantial. The couple has two adult children, a son and a daughter, both of whom partnered with redheads, and each couple has one small child. The son earned his PhD from the University of Chicago and wrote a book about Germany, the environment, and the body. It was the only book on their shelves to occupy a position on a book stand and not be placed among the hundreds of other books. Travel makes it possible to see more people’s everyday lives and to imagine how our own lives might be similar and different. From the photos, books, and CDs on the shelves to the spices in the cupboards, plants in the window sills, and distinct smell of the house, I learned about this family and believe that we could, in the very least, have a nice afternoon together. I miss travel.
There is nothing like a road trip to contemplate life goals and reflect on the shitshow that has been 2020. I used to deeply enjoy reflecting on and overly romanticizing my everyday life, evaluating where I had been and anticipating, eagerly and with trepidation, where I would go. From the age of 8 until my mid-20s, I journaled regularly, if not daily. I stopped in graduate school when academia squelched the fun and satisfying release that journaling used to give me and I never went back to it, not in any serious way. But there is a lot to reflect on in 2020 and I have rediscovered my love of (nonacademic) writing this year.
My mantra in 2020 became “Do what you can with what you have and try to be content and grateful that we (I, my family and I, my students and colleagues and I) are learning something, even if it’s not what we planned, hoped, or even wanted to learn.” I learned how to teach online and that, not surprisingly, I prefer face-to-face teaching. I am not connecting with students nearly as much, but we’re still learning. I’m learning how to connect with friends across the country in new virtual ways. I’m learning how be at peace with disappointments that have come with a global pandemic, like the social isolation, while also being grateful for new opportunities that have arisen, like living with my partner fulltime. Most of all, though, I’m grateful that I have not lost any loved ones to COVID-19. I hope it remains so in 2021. I grieve for those who have lost people to Covid-19 and to the gross incompetence (national government) and ignorance and lack of concern by so many about public health. I’m grateful that a vaccine has been developed and the process of vaccinating the world has begun, but afraid that it’s not happening quickly enough. I’m grateful that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election and, so far, mass violence has not yet broken out, but neither have the Trump signs come down nor have many Trump supporters accepted the completely unambiguous election results. I remain nervous and have a hard time reading or watching the news as talk of Coronavirus, Russian hacking and a Republican coup take center stage on front pages everywhere. This is not supposed to happen in a democracy. It’s scary not only for us in the U.S., but for all whom democracy has been a goal worth fighting and dying for.
I’m grateful for many things in 2020, and there is a lot of darkness around the world that is out of our control, but there are some things I could work on individually, things I could have done better this year, which brings me to my New Year’s resolutions: First of all, I am not going to drink alcohol in January. I greatly look forward to my 2-3 glasses of wine at night, so in order for this to be successful, I need to change my routine and habits. Currently, the plan is to go to bed earlier at night where I will read engrossing nonfiction essays and novels, like the book I found in a used bookstore in Northampton and read in two days: Stay with Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyò. The book gives a husband and wife’s perspective on their marriage and the different forces and people pulling them apart. There were also a few mentions of (successful) coup attempts in this Nigeria-based novel, which reminds me again that we can learn a lot from our own past as well as from other places. Tomorrow, my daughter and I will go to the public library to get more books.
Another resolution: Go to bed earlier at night and get up earlier in the morning. 7:00 is a perfectly reasonable time to get up, but these days, I rarely get out of bed before 7:30 or 8. It should be noted that drinking less and getting up earlier are not new New Year’s resolutions and I have been more successful at these resolutions some years than others (2020 was not a successful year in those regards). I also would like to get more house plants, write more for fun, continue doing yoga and keep trying to meditate, and finally, I would like to donate even more money, food, and other goods, because the wealthy are sucking the life and money out of the poor and middle-class people in this country and the world.
But for now, I will enjoy the rest of this drive, listen to my partner sing along to the radio, and make sure he is awake to finish the drive. We have already listened to both of the music mixes that we each made this holiday season. One of many things I love about N is that he has made an annual music mix for friends and family every year of his life since he was 14, which makes 39 years this year. I used to make music mixes, too, but not as consistently as he has, and I hadn’t made one in a few years, but 2020 inspired me. We needed an anthem for the new year to help me look forward to better days, and to be grateful and inspired. I played it for M and L and their friends, and they liked it so much that the friends even requested copies for themselves, a proud moment for me. The mix features alternative/indie rock as well as country, folk, and hip-hop, and (almost) all of the writers and singers on this mix are women, intentionally so.
The drive to Northampton took almost 12 hours exactly and the drive home took 11 ½ hours. Both there and back, we stopped midpoint in Buffalo, New York, at a favorite regional grocery store, Wegman’s, to get lunch. We made it home by 7:00 p.m. with enough time to let the 8-year-old release the pent-up energy from the long car ride, play with the hamster, and get to bed at a reasonable time because she has (virtual) school tomorrow. K fell asleep in the chair almost immediately upon arriving home. I finished up my journal and even N and I were in bed by 11:00. I set my alarm clock for 7. I drank no wine. So far, so good on the resolutions!
(I woke up at 7:30 on Monday, so there is room for improvement.)