Photo: Matthieu Spohn/Getty Images

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Addictions are usually addictions to consumption. I’m no stranger to addiction. I’ve tried pot, booze, people, sex, food, caffeine, histrionics, TV, and…

https://kellyeden.medium.com/?source=post_page-----2898974e945a-----------------------------------

Kelly Eden

https://kellyeden.medium.com/when-the-world-feels-dark-and-beautiful-in-the-same-moment-2898974e945a?source=post_page-----2898974e945a-----------------------------------

Dec 17, 2021·3 min read

Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

I’m sure you’ve experienced those strange moments when you feel like your heart is pulled in opposite directions. There are so many experiences with this double-sided quality, where we feel two emotions at once.

We did do a few small things. My main effort was to make a wreath; we didn’t have any pines at the old farmhouse property, so we wandered a nearby state forest to cut some inconspicuous branches. I tied them to a wreath form, wrapped it with a velvet bow, and put it on our front door. We didn’t do gifts for each other, and only bought a few for close family. We saw people separately, for short visits, a few days before Christmas. Christmas Day we spent alone. I was still reeling from my first miscarriage and we struggled to find something on television that wasn’t a celebration of kids or family. I think we gave up, and went to bed early.

This year I realize how much I missed all of it — even the things I used to gripe about, like waiting in line at a crowded co-op to buy apples or staying up until midnight to bake pies. We do things for holidays that take more effort and time than we’d normally consider reasonable — elaborate meals, decorations that get unpacked and hung for only a few weeks, gifts painstakingly wrapped and ribbon-ed. I’ve come to realize that we do it because we secretly love these things, but we need an excuse to do them. We need a holiday to inspire us to make the effort that special things require.

This year I am doing more. While there aren’t any big gatherings in our future, I’ve revived some of the old traditions. I bought and mailed cards — more than I’ve ever sent before. We got presents for each other. I ordered a gingerbread house kit in the mail. And, for the first time, we got a tree.

We’ve never had a tree before, not even a fake one. We tried once years ago with a little potted one, but our then-spry cats refused to leave it alone and we had to lock it away in a guest bedroom.

This year we walked across the brook and into a meadow with a hacksaw, and worked together to cut a fresh tree from our property. It’s a sizable pine — taller than me, and wide with dense branches. We dragged it back up through the big field and put it in the flatbed. “Do you think the animals will mess with it?” I said. “Maybe,” Cody said. “But let’s try anyway.”

So the tree sits in the living room now. Miraculously, the animals leave it alone. Our ornaments are still all in storage, but I did buy lights. I went traditional and got candy colored ones — like we had on the tree when I was a kid. The other night I walked Gracie down by the lake and looked up to see them glowing through our living room windows. It looked like any other year, at Christmas.

I dropped most of my cards in the mail last week, and a few more this week. Coming back from the mailbox the other day, I spied a large box at the end of the driveway. “Are you expecting anything?” I asked — we’re careful not to ruin the surprise of presents ordered by mail.

“My parents said they were sending something,” Cody said. “But it’s not a Christmas present. They said we should open it now.”

Inside were two boxes of dozens of Christmas ornaments, from their own collection. “They’re for our tree. So we can decorate it this year.”

So now our tree sits in the living room, glowing with its colorful fairy lights, flush with borrowed ornaments from so many past Christmases. I turn the lights on every day in the morning, and off at night. As I work at my desk throughout the day, I look over at it, this unmistakable symbol of winter, of Christmas, of the end of the year.

It was a special gift, made that way through thought, and care, and effort. Like all the best holiday traditions.

https://justinel999.medium.com/?source=post_page-----7d0ed68e4926-----------------------------------

Justine L

https://index.medium.com/oh-please-can-2022-be-the-year-we-have-less-meetings-7d0ed68e4926?source=post_page-----7d0ed68e4926-----------------------------------

Dec 15, 2021·4 min read

Photo: Chris Montgomery/Unsplash

I’m pretty sure that I’ve attended more meetings in the last twenty months than in the thirty or so years of my pre-2020 working life.

Strides in workplace technology have been a pandemic success story, enabling many people to continue their employment and…

https://philosophyasawayoflife.medium.com/?source=post_page-----3419f18bb86f-----------------------------------

Philosophy as a Way of Life

https://philosophyasawayoflife.medium.com/what-philosophers-think-2020-edition-3419f18bb86f?source=post_page-----3419f18bb86f-----------------------------------

Dec 16, 2021·9 min read

[image: the “Thinker” by Rodin outside Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum, Wikimedia; this is essay #351 in the Philosophy as a Way of Life series]

Philosophy, contra popular opinion (even among some philosophers) makes progress. I have written a whole (free!) book (summarized here) about how that works. The basic idea is that philosophy, unlike science, is in the business of discovering, exploring, and refining conceptual landscapes defined by the questions in which philosophers are interested in.

Story by Bella Coronado

Esperanza Coronado didn’t cook because she had to, or because it was a hobby; cooking was her love language, how she communicated joy.

On the rare occasion when my Abuela’s four sons, three daughter-in-laws and 12 grandchildren gathered together, we came around her food. She valued the way food brings people together, because it brought warmth that could be felt in every room; it was felt through conversations between family members around the table.

Her cooking left an impression. From birthdays to family gatherings, if anyone came through my Abuela’s front door, they would instantly know they were about to be fed well.

My Abuela was more than just the food she made, you could tell because she put her whole heart into making sure everyone enjoyed a good meal. It is one thing to make food, but cooking a meal to be shared between your family is a way of expressing love in the most sincere way.

Folded tamales rest on a plate before being cooked in a giant steaming pot. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Growing up, I remember the package of tamales that would magically appear on our doorstep during the holidays. Traveling 976 miles from Yucaipa, California, the tamales would last for months in our freezer. Their flavor was rich and spicy, wrapped up in chewy masa and corn husk envelopes.

My Abuelos immigrated to southern California in the 1960s. My Abuelo worked in the Coachella and San Joaquin Valley. He later became the foreman of two egg poultry farms. My Abuela often stayed home cooking and caring for their four sons and occasionally helping on the farm.

I grew up visiting my family in Yucaipa during summers and sometimes around the holidays. All of my fondest memories with my family involve food.

I have many memories of eating in my Abuela’s tiny kitchen, my Aubuelo somewhere out back tending to his goats, the black and white desert scenes of an old Western film playing on the TV.

When I was 15 she showed me how to make tamales.

My Abuela was known for her tamale recipe. My dad told me that it wasn’t Christmas unless she made them.

She would marinate the pork and chicken, patting together masa and assembling each individual tamale by hand. They would cook for hours, the smell of smoky peppers and sweet masa filling the entire house. The enduring process of watching them come together and steam in the big, metal pot was always worth the wait.

Tamale-making is an art. Originating back to 8,000 B.C., tamales have been an important part of Mexican culinary cuisine and national identity. Passed on from each generation, traditional Mexican recipes hold a beautiful meaning and connection to a vibrant culture.

Bella fills tamales in her kitchen in Bellingham, Wash. on October 24, 2021. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Traditional meals connect me to the culture that I have grown so distant from.

“Having those traditional kinds of meals plays an important role in our lives because it helps us remember the past,” my dad said as we reminisced about Abuela’s cooking and how much we miss her. “Those things that come and go, and meals, especially traditional meals, can help us remember those moments.”

There was always something cooking on the stove. You could peek around the kitchen counter and see Abuela’s petite figure, dark hair and delicate hands creating something that was bound to be delicious.

However, she never wrote any of her recipes down. The occasional scribble on the back of a receipt could be found around the house, but after her passing, no complete recipes were uncovered.

Meredith E. Abarca’s book, “Voices in the Kitchen,” mentions a cultural norm for Mexican women to not keep record of their recipes. She describes it as a sensory way of knowing the right taste and flavors of a recipe; a Sazón. Cooking without measurements or written instructions is common in a Mexican kitchen.

It could be because traditional recipes live through people. They are taught and remade year after year, generation after generation.

For me, remaking my Abuela’s tamale recipe is complex; all I know is based on foggy memories, taste and smell.

It is more than just adding the right ingredients.

I can try my best to replicate her food, but I would do anything to just enjoy the taste of a meal made by her again.

Bella’s tamale notes written out by memory. After talking to family members, she was able to piece together a recipe tasting close to her Abuela’s. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Traditional meals hold special meaning in my life, especially during the holidays. They hold even more meaning now that my grandparents have passed. Though they are gone, my Abuelos leave a beautiful legacy within their children and grandchildren. Not only is our existence in their favor, but the heart of our culture and family ties connect us to one another.

My last visit in July was a very different experience. There was no wafting smell of beans and rice as I walked through the door. There was no hum of the frying pan, no heat of the stove and no plate of food waiting for me on the table. Instead of waking up to a breakfast of huevos rancheros or chilaquiles, my dad and I stopped by the local Del Taco.

The memories outlive even the tastiest homemade tamale. Gathering around the table brings us together.

“It gives us a place to be a family,” my dad said. “That’s important not only to me but in our heritage as well.” He told me that in Mexican culture, food reflects the connection between people, especially between those who are family.

I remember arriving to Yucaipa late one night during the Holidays, my dad and I exhausted from travel. My Abuela stayed up for us. She answered the door and greeted us by saying, “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”

Story by Bella Coronado

Esperanza Coronado didn’t cook because she had to, or because it was a hobby; cooking was her love language, how she communicated joy.

On the rare occasion when my Abuela’s four sons, three daughter-in-laws and 12 grandchildren gathered together, we came around her food. She valued the way food brings people together, because it brought warmth that could be felt in every room; it was felt through conversations between family members around the table.

Her cooking left an impression. From birthdays to family gatherings, if anyone came through my Abuela’s front door, they would instantly know they were about to be fed well.

My Abuela was more than just the food she made, you could tell because she put her whole heart into making sure everyone enjoyed a good meal. It is one thing to make food, but cooking a meal to be shared between your family is a way of expressing love in the most sincere way.

Folded tamales rest on a plate before being cooked in a giant steaming pot. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Growing up, I remember the package of tamales that would magically appear on our doorstep during the holidays. Traveling 976 miles from Yucaipa, California, the tamales would last for months in our freezer. Their flavor was rich and spicy, wrapped up in chewy masa and corn husk envelopes.

My Abuelos immigrated to southern California in the 1960s. My Abuelo worked in the Coachella and San Joaquin Valley. He later became the foreman of two egg poultry farms. My Abuela often stayed home cooking and caring for their four sons and occasionally helping on the farm.

I grew up visiting my family in Yucaipa during summers and sometimes around the holidays. All of my fondest memories with my family involve food.

I have many memories of eating in my Abuela’s tiny kitchen, my Aubuelo somewhere out back tending to his goats, the black and white desert scenes of an old Western film playing on the TV.

When I was 15 she showed me how to make tamales.

My Abuela was known for her tamale recipe. My dad told me that it wasn’t Christmas unless she made them.

She would marinate the pork and chicken, patting together masa and assembling each individual tamale by hand. They would cook for hours, the smell of smoky peppers and sweet masa filling the entire house. The enduring process of watching them come together and steam in the big, metal pot was always worth the wait.

Tamale-making is an art. Originating back to 8,000 B.C., tamales have been an important part of Mexican culinary cuisine and national identity. Passed on from each generation, traditional Mexican recipes hold a beautiful meaning and connection to a vibrant culture.

Bella fills tamales in her kitchen in Bellingham, Wash. on October 24, 2021. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Traditional meals connect me to the culture that I have grown so distant from.

“Having those traditional kinds of meals plays an important role in our lives because it helps us remember the past,” my dad said as we reminisced about Abuela’s cooking and how much we miss her. “Those things that come and go, and meals, especially traditional meals, can help us remember those moments.”

There was always something cooking on the stove. You could peek around the kitchen counter and see Abuela’s petite figure, dark hair and delicate hands creating something that was bound to be delicious.

However, she never wrote any of her recipes down. The occasional scribble on the back of a receipt could be found around the house, but after her passing, no complete recipes were uncovered.

Meredith E. Abarca’s book, “Voices in the Kitchen,” mentions a cultural norm for Mexican women to not keep record of their recipes. She describes it as a sensory way of knowing the right taste and flavors of a recipe; a Sazón. Cooking without measurements or written instructions is common in a Mexican kitchen.

It could be because traditional recipes live through people. They are taught and remade year after year, generation after generation.

For me, remaking my Abuela’s tamale recipe is complex; all I know is based on foggy memories, taste and smell.

It is more than just adding the right ingredients.

I can try my best to replicate her food, but I would do anything to just enjoy the taste of a meal made by her again.

Bella’s tamale notes written out by memory. After talking to family members, she was able to piece together a recipe tasting close to her Abuela’s. Photo by Sawyer Moss

Traditional meals hold special meaning in my life, especially during the holidays. They hold even more meaning now that my grandparents have passed. Though they are gone, my Abuelos leave a beautiful legacy within their children and grandchildren. Not only is our existence in their favor, but the heart of our culture and family ties connect us to one another.

My last visit in July was a very different experience. There was no wafting smell of beans and rice as I walked through the door. There was no hum of the frying pan, no heat of the stove and no plate of food waiting for me on the table. Instead of waking up to a breakfast of huevos rancheros or chilaquiles, my dad and I stopped by the local Del Taco.

The memories outlive even the tastiest homemade tamale. Gathering around the table brings us together.

“It gives us a place to be a family,” my dad said. “That’s important not only to me but in our heritage as well.” He told me that in Mexican culture, food reflects the connection between people, especially between those who are family.

I remember arriving to Yucaipa late one night during the Holidays, my dad and I exhausted from travel. My Abuela stayed up for us. She answered the door and greeted us by saying, “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”

Essential prep for the beginning and end of the new year

https://medium.com/@amberthealchemist?source=post_page-----e55199ddf7b4-----------------------------------

Amber the Alchemist

https://zora.medium.com/how-to-ground-your-mind-body-spirit-and-emotions-e55199ddf7b4?source=post_page-----e55199ddf7b4-----------------------------------

Dec 17, 2021·8 min read

Some folks use notebooks to review the old year and plan for the new year. Do you? Image: Getty

You don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that the past two years have been a whirlwind, to say the least. No matter how hard some people have tried to separate themselves from the Collective, the pandemic — along with political…

https://pwross.medium.com/?source=post_page-----db40275a5418-----------------------------------

Pete Ross

https://index.medium.com/entry-level-jobs-are-everything-wrong-with-the-21st-century-db40275a5418?source=post_page-----db40275a5418-----------------------------------

Dec 13, 2021·4 min read

Photo: Adrian Sulyok/Unsplash

As a 41-year-old, I’ve seen the working world make a sizeable transition from when I was a kid to the point we’re at now. When I started working, it was all about “getting your foot in the door” with an entry-level job and working your way up. The pay wasn’t great (it wasn’t…

https://medium.com/@lindacastrilli?source=post_page-----942da44c924-----------------------------------

Linda Castrilli

https://index.medium.com/i-took-an-extended-break-from-the-rat-race-here-are-lessons-learned-that-i-never-want-to-lose-942da44c924?source=post_page-----942da44c924-----------------------------------

Dec 16, 2021·6 min read

Photo: GettyImages

In the spring of 2021, I left the corporate job I had been in for the prior seventeen years.

It was the first time since graduating college — and we’re talking early 1990s here — that I had been unemployed. Back then, OJ Simpson wasn’t yet on trial for murder and Prince…

Photo by Barry Zhou on Unsplash

I lost two students last month.

Not students who are currently enrolled in my class, although I have experienced that particular sort of devastation. No, these students were in my class several years ago. My kids. Any teacher will tell you that this is how it works.

When a student comes into my classroom, I tell them they have a lifetime warranty on their experience as my student. Struggling in college? Call. Need a reference? Email. Want to meet up for an in-person pep-talk? Text.

Many do.

I’ve attended college graduations and weddings and baby showers and birthday parties to celebrate them. I’ve held their brand new babies. I’ve let toddlers waddle across the colored tiles in my classroom as their parents fill me in on their adult lives. I’ve met them for brunches, lunches, dinners, and coffees. I’ve scheduled their appointments with therapists and talked them through post-college crises.

I tell them to call. Many do.

The ones who don’t are the ones who linger in my mind. They’re the ones I wonder about on some random cloudy afternoon as I drive down Interstate 5, my mind wandering to the crystal-clear centers of otherwise foggy memories: the stickers they carefully arranged on their water bottle or the playfully doodled notes they left on their assignments or the tears they shed as they sat in my classroom and cried over a break-up.

In sixteen years of teaching, I have yet to be able to convey the depth of the care I feel for my students. Every day they sit in front of me, vulnerable in their roles as learners, trusting me to guide them in a manner that will make them feel valued and capable. It’s the greatest responsibility of my life.

I just wish they knew.

I wish they knew that I root for them as I grade their essays.

I wish they knew that I see their pain on a bad day, the pain they try to hide behind a hoodie, and I cross my fingers, hoping that the next time I see them, the hood will be down and the smile will be back.

I wish they knew that I see them vying for acceptance every day, earnestness sparking quietly in their eyes, even as they work so heartbreakingly hard to make it seem like they don’t care what anyone else thinks.

I wish they knew how often they make me laugh — even when I have to hide it.

I wish they knew just how much they’re capable of accomplishing — especially when they have resigned themselves to the fate of being “bad” in school.

I wish they knew how much I love the notes they leave for me — on assignments, on the whiteboard, and on post-its. The crooked smiley faces and the silly jokes are fuel for another day.

I wish they knew that I carry their successes and failures with me long after the final bell of the day.

I wish they knew that I cross my fingers and toes for them on graduation day. That I hope post-high school life is everything they hope it will be and more. That if I could pave the road they’re about to travel to glass-like smoothness, I would. But I can’t and I know it’s for the best.

I wish my students knew how much I think about them after they leave me. I wish they knew how proud I am when they become mothers, fathers, teachers, nurses, lawyers, mechanics, firefighters, baristas, artists, welders, problem-solvers, soul-searchers, world-travelers, or whatever it is that fills them with a sense of their own tremendous worth.

I try to tell them these things— explicitly first — and then through my actions. I talk to them every single day. I try to cultivate silly little inside jokes with them. I tell them I’m glad they’ve come to class — even when they’re 30 minutes late. I invite them to stay after school if they need help — or just a quiet place to work. I encourage them to join the clubs I advise, and I tell them I miss them on the days that they’re gone.

I lost two students last month. Gone forever. Two truncated sentences in what should have been two full-length stories of vivacity and accomplishment.

I can’t help but wonder if they knew the richness they added to *my *life.

I hope they did.

https://irmamcclaurin.medium.com/?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Irma McClaurin

https://zora.medium.com/ode-to-bell-hooks-6275c7ddb3d0?source=post_page-----6275c7ddb3d0-----------------------------------

Dec 16, 2021·2 min read

Images from bell hooks INSTITUTE, Berea College, bellhooksinstitute.com

sista bell hooks,

to you,

we owe

an enormous debt

that can never really

be repaid

in full.

You fed our minds,

gave us concepts

like Black Feminism

Photo by Mike Meyers on Unsplash

I’m no self-help guru but call your friends

https://johndevore.medium.com/?source=post_page-----4f244cbfa03a-----------------------------------

John DeVore

https://medium.com/humungus/my-favorite-podcast-is-talking-to-you-on-the-phone-for-hours-4f244cbfa03a?source=post_page-----4f244cbfa03a-----------------------------------

Dec 16, 2021·5 min read

The internet is a horn of cornucopia overflowing with mostly harmless self-help advice from aspiring gurus. Drink water. Yup, sure, can’t hurt. Go for walks. I get my 10,000 steps in every day. Try to get eight hours of sleep every night. It’s hard because I do love scrolling in bed at…

“Granite erratic, Dudmaston” by Richard Webb is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse&atype=rich

It was the rock that caught my eye. Dappled with lichen and lighted by the afternoon sun, it appeared to be the perfect place for contemplation. A spot where you could sit and write your novel, ponder your place in the universe, and perhaps reach some kind of equilibrium with the planet.

https://evepeyser.medium.com/?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Eve Peyser

https://evepeyser.medium.com/how-people-who-kept-their-new-years-resolutions-did-it-763e1678591b?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Dec 17·7 min read

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Time is kinda fake, but the new year nevertheless feels like a clean slate, a moment where you have the opportunity to shed old sins and reinvent yourself anew. For many, this translates to buying a gym membership and vowing to lose 15 pounds. So by March, when you…

Here’s my annual list of favorite books, music, and movies. Art always sustains and nourishes the soul. But for me, music and storytelling felt especially urgent during this pandemic year — a way to connect even when we were cooped up.

Since these are works I have actually listened to, watched, or read, I’m sure I’ve missed some worthy stuff. So if you have your own recommendations to share, I’ll add them to the stack of books and movies I hope to catch up on over the holidays!

Favorite Books of 2021:

• Matrix — Lauren Groff

• How the Word Is Passed — Clint Smith

• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev — Dawnie Walton

• The Lincoln Highway — Amor Towles

• Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City — Andrea Elliott

• Harlem Shuffle — Colson Whitehead

• Cloud Cuckoo Land — Anthony Doerr

• These Precious Days — Ann Patchett

• Crying in H Mart — Michelle Zauner

• Aftershocks — Nadia Owusu

• Crossroads — Jonathan Franzen

• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois — Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

• Beautiful Country — Qian Julie Wang

And here’s a reminder of books I recommended earlier this year:

• At Night All Blood Is Black — David Diop

• Land of Big Numbers — Te-Ping Chen

• Empire of Pain — Patrick Radden Keefe

• Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir

• When We Cease to Understand the World — Benjamín Labatut

• Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future — Elizabeth Kolbert

• Things We Lost to the Water — Eric Nguyen

• Leave The World Behind — Rumaan Alam

• Klara and the Sun — Kazuo Ishiguro

• The Sweetness of Water — Nathan Harris

• Intimacies — Katie Kitamura

Favorite Movies of 2021:

• Drive My Car

• Summer of Soul

• West Side Story

• The Power of the Dog

• Pig

• Passing

• The Card Counter

• Judas and the Black Messiah

• The Worst Person in the World

• Old Henry

• The Last Duel

• The Tragedy of Macbeth

• C’mon C’mon

• Quo Vadis, Aida?

Favorite Music of 2021:​​

• The Only Heartbreaker — Mitski

• I Don’t Live Here Anymore — The War On Drugs ft. Lucius

• Tala Tannam — Mdou Moctar

• Magnolia Blues — Adia Victoria

• Witchoo — Durand Jones & The Indications & Aaron Frazer

• Formwela 10 — Esperanza Spalding

• Gold Chains — Genesis Owusu

• Broken Horses — Brandi Carlile

• Woman — Little Simz ft. Cleo Sol

• Pepas — Farruko

• Go Down Deh — Spice ft. Sean Paul & Shaggy

• Freedom — Jon Batiste

• It’s Way with Me — Wye Oak

• Nobody- Nas ft. Ms. Lauryn Hill

• Nightflyer — Allison Russell

• Montero (Call Me By Your Name) — Lil Nas X

• Patria y Vida — Yotuel, Gente de Zona, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo, el Funky

• Notice — Tammy Lakkis

• Armash — Teddy Afro

• Write a List of Things To Look Forward To -Courtney Barnett

• Volví — Aventura & Bad Bunny

• Headshots (4r Da Locals) — Isaiah Rashad

• Boomerang — Yebba

• In My Blood — MO3 & Morray

• Ya — YEИDRY

• Rumors — Lizzo ft. Cardi B

• Walking at a Downtown Pace — Parquet Courts

And here’s a reminder of the songs I had on my summer playlist:

https://scottcdunn.medium.com/?source=post_page-----85498e3e5b25-----------------------------------

ScottCDunn

https://medium.com/creators-hub/id-like-to-be-free-of-it-now-85498e3e5b25?source=post_page-----85498e3e5b25-----------------------------------

Dec 16·5 min read

Photo: Matthieu Spohn/Getty Images

Addictions are usually addictions to consumption. I’m no stranger to addiction. I’ve tried pot, booze, people, sex, food, caffeine, histrionics, TV, and news scrolling. I’ve tasted many things to alter my mood and every one of them came up empty. In the end, it’s still up to me to be happy. No matter how I try to alter my…

“Granite erratic, Dudmaston” by Richard Webb is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse&atype=rich

It was the rock that caught my eye. Dappled with lichen and lighted by the afternoon sun, it appeared to be the perfect place for contemplation. A spot where you could sit and write your novel, ponder your place in the universe, and perhaps reach some kind of equilibrium with the planet.

https://evepeyser.medium.com/?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Eve Peyser

https://evepeyser.medium.com/how-people-who-kept-their-new-years-resolutions-did-it-763e1678591b?source=post_page-----763e1678591b-----------------------------------

Dec 17·7 min read

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Time is kinda fake, but the new year nevertheless feels like a clean slate, a moment where you have the opportunity to shed old sins and reinvent yourself anew. For many, this translates to buying a gym membership and vowing to lose 15 pounds. So by March, when you…

I would like to dismiss 2021 as a terrible, no-good, very bad year, a year to be sept away and forgotten as quickly as possible. After all, it was a year that began with the insurrection and was quickly followed by my ALS diagnosis. Dire on both the public and private fronts. Such a year can’t possibly have been anything other than bad. And yet — it was also the year that I not only had a new book published, I also sold two new books (on the same day!) to come out in 2022. More importantly, it was a year in which I connected in a deeply heartfelt way with so many friends, old and new, near and far. So, as is so often the case with not only years, but life experiences in general, 2021 was a mixed bag.

Still, I feel a need for a cleansing ritual as 2021 comes to a close, an acknowledgment that some things must be cleared away to make way for what comes next. I have a friend and a sister both of whom are avid sweepers. They take their brooms to the floor with such determination and ferocity it is almost scary — you would not want to be a crumb in their paths. I would trust both of them to sweep out the toxins of 2021 and prepare a clean slate for us going forward. I’ll let you know if they rent out their services.

When my husband and I moved, sixteen years ago, to the house where we currently live, neighbors eyed us warily then came over to check us out. They were amazingly direct about hoping we were good people, because the residents who preceded us were definitely not. Those people had harassed the African American kid across the street. They had amassed piles of glass-laden junk that they expected Goodwill to cart away. They irked the postwoman, the utility person, the telephone guy. Everyone had a story of malfeasance. They were all relieved this extended family had moved out.

Several people suggested a saging ceremony was in order, and I, as a lover of ritual, thought *why not. *So we obtained some sage and burned it in a short ceremony in which we said some words about hoping to made the atmosphere of the property more positive and loving. It seems to have worked, as all traces of the former residents’ bad juju seem to have disappeared, and our years here have been happy, including very enjoyable and mutually helpful relationships with our neighbors.

Sweeping and saging are both great rituals to take us over the threshold into 2022. It is, of course, a completely arbitrary crossing, but because we, as human beings, are meaning makers, it doesn’t feel that way, much as we (I) often try to tell ourselves that the celebration of a new year is manufactured. Why do we do this crazy celebrating with drunkenness and resolutions we know we won’t make good on? Because, I think, a new year gives hope a new platform. The things we hope and wish for seem to have a greater likelihood of coming to pass in the shiny new year than they did in the nasty old one.

When I met my now-husband, he had been reading the Tao Te Ching, and he wanted to warn me about the dangers of hope (the hope of being published was then in our sightlines). The Tao Te Ching warns us against the danger and fallacy of hope. “Hope is as hollow as fear,” says the Stephen Mitchell translation. Or, as my husband put it, “Hope is the flip side of despair.” The Tao eschews hope because of its relationship to selfhood which is reputed to be the cause of human suffering. To hope sets us up for disappointment.

After many years of thinking about this, and weighing the pros and cons of hope, I would humbly take issue with this Taoist point of view. I think most human beings need hope to carry on through life’s plentiful challenges. We need to feel that our lives, and the world in general, might improve. Without hope the motivation for doing much, beyond going to work, would quickly dissipate. Why exercise if you don’t hope to improve your health. Why do volunteer work if you don’t hope that someone will benefit. Hope has been a powerful force in the accomplishments of so many great liberation movements. Women and blacks would not have achieved the right to vote were it not for some people with very strong hope. People dared to hope, as Barack Obama knew. We need to hope without getting attached to specific outcomes, but we can’t give up on the entire idea of hope, which is endlessly renewable.

January is named for the Roman god Janus, guardian of doorways and transitions, who is depicted with two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. It’s almost impossible not to do both at this time of year, reflecting back to sweep out the horrors of 2021, and looking ahead with hope for better things in 2022.

As I try to expunge the bad juju of the insurrection and my diagnosis, I am keenly involved in looking ahead with hope and optimism: I’m hoping to be alive and mobile when my books come out in August and September, I’m hoping to get to Denver to see my grandniece after she is born in February, I am hoping to hold onto my manual dexterity for the continued writing of fiction and this blog, I am hoping Congress passes the voting rights bills, I am hoping to continue communicating with as many friends as possible. And finally, I am hoping I can make peace with whatever of these hopes don’t materialize.

I wish you all a smooth transition as you sweep and sage and make the most of hope.