Cover Your Bases 19
1/3/2021 What I am keeping from 2020
Image by Marekr, used under creative commons license.
This week: A reflection on something personal and reflective. What I want to keep that I learned in 2020:
Patience, compassion, and listening are important. One big challenge of the pandemic in 2020 was dealing with other people who had their own stressors that COVID-19 intensified. Loneliness, anger, resentment, isolation, fear: we shared all of them. Taking that extra beat to not be triggered by a triggered person, and to try to instead hold space and deeply listen before reacting is a skill I want to continue to improve.
Kindness towards others makes me happier. Giving items away on the Buy Nothing List for my neighborhood, sharing stews and soup, baking for people, snagging a rocker for a colleague’s 3-year-old—these actions helped keep me going when I could have felt like crap.
Lean into friends who care. Maybe this is so obvious, but we all have people who love us as we are--how good a job are we doing loving them back? And this includes old friends who--amazingly--never stopped caring! (THANK YOU). (Also, I know I am an inconsistent friend, so for me, this is a growth area.)
Get rid of FOMO, it’s a waste of breath. This was the year I realized that I needed to stop trying to remain friends with people who weren’t really interested in me and who made me feel bad because they were so non-responsive. Pruning social media lists, as well as less time online, really helped.
It’s okay to be angry. I am so angry, so fucking angry, about so many things. And being angry is a reminder of all the things I need to work to change.
Quick links: Resiliency, aging, #mentalhealth
New York Times, How the Oldest Old Can Endure Even This, by John Leland, I’ve enjoyed all John Leland’s writings about aging and endurance in people over 85, so of course, I read this new piece about older old folks in the time of COVID-19 as soon as I saw it. A heart-warming read (sorry for the paywall).
Oliver Burkeman, The Imperfectionist. I just signed for Burkeman’s newsletter, partly because I enjoyed several of the quotes he shared as end of year comments, including this one from C.S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time.
“Things aren't unusually uncertain these days. It's just that we're more aware of how uncertain they always were. "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with 'normal life.' Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies.”
MAKING: I’m about to hit a food and drink reset, like many others, The plan is to do 3 weeks of a dry January--until my birthday— and also stop eating wheat, sugar, red meat, and white meat in favor of lots of plants, some dairy, and very limited grains. I can make it, right?
Since I don’t like eating salads as much as usual in the winter, I’ll be making more vegetarian chilis (this mushroom chili from last winter had good texture and taste), hearty soups like this cranberry bean and kale, and lots of roasted squash and red onion, and curried sweet potato dishes. Plus, lots of sauteed greens. Wish me luck, quitting bread is going to be an agony.
PARTING BITS: The right equipment to get outside, and some media to watch
Outside: Hiking has been the great joy of the winter break. Planning to have good boots with Vibram soles, a warm vest and jacket, a hat, two water bottles, and a light backpack with outside pockets made a huge difference in getting out. I bought a super cool jacket from LL Bean, have Salomon boots from REI, and was given a terrific Roark backpack. I’ve been using it every day. The right equipment for going out the door fast has made a huge difference.
Media: It’s been so fun to watch the first season of The Great Pottery Throwdown, a British-baking style show from the same production company, about ceramics. Just like BBS, these shows feature contestants who behave in opposite ways from Americans, demonstrating care, concern, and warmth towards one another that we all yearn for in our lives. We loved potter Kate Malone and many of the contestants.
I also enjoyed Bridgerton, which is an excellent romp; fun and sexy, and imagining a world where race is not an issue (though class is, for sure!!) And Adjoa Andoh, OMG.
Hey, I’d enjoy hearing from you--just send me an email. Also, if you enjoyed #19, please share with someone who might like it, or share it online.
And if you got this from a friend and would like to subscribe yourself, please do so here. #20 will happen next Sunday, thanks for reading!
Best, Susan