Now is the winter of our discontent. It’s the closing hours of 2021 as I write these words (well, not that first sentence) Betty White has left the building and the fifth wave is taking hold all around me in our quiet little village. I hope beyond hope that it’s a final boss, once through this, it will be done.
But it won’t work like that. The coronavirus has been with humans a long time; the common cold created the handkerchief industry around 10,000 years ago. It will never go away completely, but will move from pandemic to an endemic version, nothing you want to spread, but something we can get over, with a little rest, some chicken soup, and TLC from those who care about us. The key to have this be made glorious summer is not by this sun of York, but the most excellent science behind the MRNA vaccines. I will be boosted ASAP and I highly recommend you do the same. (I am sometimes called upon to assist the public in a medical setting and therefore required to get the annual flu shot.) From what I can see, (thanks to a connection to the entirety of human knowledge and the filter of wetware between my ears), the future of COVID may take this path, where every year we get the shot and have our bruised arms hung up for monuments. (Thanks, Bill.)
Now to the opening days of 2022, I find it strange that we set arbitrary boundaries to our time, but it helps to keep us from being late. (One of the more celebrated New Year dates in the West was April 1, but I will save that story) It is a time of reflection of the past 12 months and a look forward to the new, perhaps for ways to improve ourselves in the coming year. As our resolutions fall by the wayside, you must not despair. Rome wasn’t built in a day (it’s been under construction since 753 BC) and your wish to *insert resolution here* is still a noble goal in February or March or April. I reflect on the past year and recall it was a roller-coaster ride, more than most I have experienced. I witnessed great suffering, and experienced some of my own, yet accomplished a great many good things, the best of which was in the company of the people I care deeply for. I learned a bit about my own boundaries and have a better sense of what I need to go forward. My wish is to continue on the path of self discovery and continue to do good for myself and my community. We must remember that “the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” Or, as my late great friend Dan Small put it, “You have to take the crunchy with the smooth!”
Please share your news with me at kellybacks@rocketmail.com.
