December 1, 2022
Looking Back to January
My last post on this website was on July of 2021. Sorry: June. I don’t really know what to make of the fact that I haven’t posted anything since then because it’s not for a lack of things to share or reflections or desire or time. It has to do with Time.
It’s been harder than ever to understand Time. I continue to think of 2019 as last year. I confuse 2020 with 2021. I forget it’s 2022. I can’t conceptualize that it’s 2023 in a month. I have been more tired this school year (August of 2022 to now) than the previous two years combined. I have always done well under extreme duress; it’s the aftermath that levels me. But it’s not just dealing with what students, families, colleagues and districts are experiencing due to smash-tumbling into “opening up” post-pandemic that’s left me stunned. It’s not even the cost of living and inflation (although this hasn’t helped: you go to buy a deodorant and it’s not $4.00 but $7.00). It’s something else entirely…
In fact, I have been really blessed this year with two trips to visit my family of friends in Ireland; the second trip my mother accompanied me which was a dream come true. I revised my work-in-progress novel at an incredibly serene place called Glenstal Abbey in Limerick, Ireland. When I start reflecting, I am grateful for a tremendously lovely year.
However, it’s my inability to recall the depth of the experience which is troubling me. Of course, I remember what I did in March and then July etc. I am not losing my memory; it’s that what I remember feels like it happened to someone else. I understand that sometimes people feel this as a way to cope with traumatic events, but even thinking about moments that brought me great joy, in my recollecting, I am unable to connect with them as something I experienced. I don’t really know what to make of this. Did it happen too fast? Was everything crammed into “opening up”? Did I not realize what I endured the last two years and does that have something to do with it? I don’t know.
But 2022 feels like a gigantic hole in the fabric of time where, in my mind, nothing happened when that’s not true at all!
I want to record what happened each month. There is evidence of life happening as per the photos in my phone. Therefore, starting December 1st, 2022 I will begin with the first month, January. 12 months. 12 posts. I don’t know if I will arrive at any Epiphany in 12 Days like the Wise Men did between the 25th and January 6th, nor will I be making references to the song “12 Days of Christmas” if I can help it, but I will have a record in this digital space that 2022 happened.
We rang in the new year by celebrating Jamie’s brother Chris’s birthday who passed away. This time it was just the two of us and we went up to the East Mountains where a lovely snow welcomed us and we had delicious pizza for lunch.
I joined my friends in Ireland via Zoom for a belated Christmas gathering and I received very Irish goodies from my Secret Santa. Fun.
Not long after it had begun after the holidays, the schools closed. Not due to Covid, but due to a Cyberattack. The district decided these lost days would be made up as “snow days” in May. Not fun.
Next, the Governor called in the National Guard to help out with the shortage of substitutes and teachers. It was not helpful. This photo was mocked given the students weren’t even wearing the masks properly. Not fun.
January ended with me cutting the space where my thumb and index finger meet while washing a glass. I will save you from the image that shows the red and white depth of the cut. It required stitches. The new EMT had only learned stitches and messed up. I am lucky there was no nerve damage. I am only now gaining full rotation of the thumb. Not fun. The urgent care had these blocks for dates and month and no one had bothered to set it up and hence it was indeed the 58th of January or 508th of January. Funny.
We watched an excellent film; I read The Map Waits by Sharon Telfer who is an excellent writer. Fun.
I found this wonderful image via Twitter at the end of the month. Many are familiar with Charlie Mackesy’s art (do check it out if you aren’t) and I think this image is the partridge in the pear tree that was January. He quotes G. K. Chesterton on his “About” page and I leave you with the following words:
“At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder.”
I feel the same. The lockdown was hard, the years since have been harder. Sanity was not restored (I still, in almost 2023, see people driving alone, with their windows rolled up, wearing a mask as though something is going to attack them at any moment, even though they inhale more bacteria and germs simply by virtue of existing on this earth, that that is likely the least of considerations and even though those same people lower their masks to eat at a restaurant), at least here, just a furtherance of what was implemented during that time. There has been no effort to restore what was lost or damaged. None. Zero. We carry on the way anyone carries on in the face of adversity. And we hope that when we come home to ourselves again at last that it feels like a real homecoming. Some of us will never be ok again. Those of that are must lead the way, there is no other way. Sanity, compassion, and real brotherly love must prevail if the human race is to survive, and yes, we are at that point. The earth doesn’t care; it will shake us off like fleas and carry on for millennia. How we regard each other is all that matters and all that will determine our fate.