So much about 2020 has been said, written about, fretted over, groaned from, worked with and possibly through, and now mine to add

Learn

        ~ uncertainty has become, if not my friend, then a clear daily companion;

        ~ joy has edged into my awareness as the possibility of its presence in banishing despair;

        ~ isolation has surfaced as a gift I choose for my own sake, as well as for the sake of others, even those who mock this hard choice;

        ~ connection has broken through the past busyness of my too-full-of-who-now-remembers-what to outpace so much else that I thought I wanted;

        ~ peace, the variety that surpasses our mental understanding and agreement, is present more than I imagined;

        ~ brokenness has opened me up, just when smugness and self-righteousness think to settle in and harden me; ~ forgiveness is the obvious action that I have come to  take again and again towards myself and towards one another as I repeatedly forget that I am part of the same whole and yet, again, have missed the mark;

~ practice reigns: repeatedly realigning, reaffirming, reminding that there are no unrepairable roads.

Mourn

This has been a time to mourn:
For the too-soon deaths, some desperate and tortured, some faced with too much fear, so many without the presence (comforting or not) of family or the family of friends, so many with only the self-giving presence of nursing staff, technicians, doctors, speech pathologists or aides (who all have now been witness to lifetimes of dying in mere months), I mourn.

        For families and families of friends of those who have died too soon, whose last moments may have been over technologies never designed for such tender and tortuous moments, I mourn.

        For nations and systems of care that have proved unready and unsupported for this massive planetary wrenching, I mourn.

        For people, hurt in life and now hurting others through greed and indifference, self-involvement and supremacy, I mourn.

Rejoice

And, when mourning pauses, I rejoice:

For possibilities of humility, for little incursions of  generosity, for remembrance of nature’s presence and resilience, I rejoice!

For neighbors’ kind presences, I rejoice!

For workers who continue to work to bring me what I need, I rejoice!

For realizing that what I have wanted is not always what I need, I rejoice!

For seeing that the injustices against people who are not white by people who are have cried out long enough and are due remedy, I rejoice!

For beginning to align my privileged life with simplicity, so that others may simply live, I rejoice!

For life, messy, complex, disappointing, awe-inspiring, I rejoice!

Let the learning from twenty-twenty (year of clear sight) extend forward, not be forgotten, infuse the year and time ahead.