Rays of Sunshine: Year-End 2020

My husband remarked sometime this fall that future historians of our era will have to microspecialize in 2020, as in, "I'm an expert on October 8, 2020."  It has been a year in which we lived a century.  Here are some (not-so) quick takes from an epic year.

1. We survived Covid in the early days of the pandemic.  My infection was brutal (but not hospital-inducing); the rest of my family less so.  

2. My kids learned to get along with each other during the six-month lockdown in this tiny house, and continue to develop their relationships with each other in unexpected ways.  Yes, they still fight, still annoy each other, still know how to push each other's buttons, but on the whole, the four of them can rub along okay, which is something I never thought I'd be able to say.  We did many puzzles and played lots of Scrabble and other word games this year.

3. The kitchen garden was a source of delight to me all summer and fall, and I'm looking forward to digging in the dirt in the late spring.

4. While I wrote less this year, my final Slezkine essay remains my favorite, although my latest Crawford tribute comes close.

 

5. I'm pleased to announce that my novel, All This Without You, will be published in mid-February.  I'm working through the final formatting and galley proofs now.  Pre-order will be available in a few days.  My first novel, Deliverance, finally got the cover I wanted from the start.

6. The kids discovered shchi, kuleyabaka, and pirog this year, and my fasting menus got a bit easier as a result (if more labor-intensive).  

 

At the same time, I crossed some kind of culinary Rubicon this year, and have enjoyed making some nice-looking meat, fish, and cabbage pies (with pre-made crust; I'm not that invested).  

 

The food shortages of the spring put my long-neglected bread maker to work. 

After 8 months of heavy use, it went to the Great Appliance Store in the Sky.  RIP, you served us well.

 

7. I fell down a few crafting rabbit holes this summer and fall, including jewelry-making, which I completely enjoy, and dyeing, which I do not. 

 

 

I also returned to making art this spring and summer, and am holding these new creative endeavors under the broad umbrella of This Living Hand Designs. 

 8. After stalking various listings for used pairs, I finally found a pair of Blundstones on ebay for a great bargain, and they are pretty much the best things ever. My transitional shoe crisis solved! So stompy.  

9. With hair salons closed for months, I learned how to cut both boys' hair, and have continued the practice since.  My husband had me trim his hair once in May in desperation, but has since returned to his barber, much to my relief.  I trimmed the girls' and my own hair once, since we don't need regular cuts.  It's not perfect, but it will do!

 

10. My sewing stalled out this year, but I made a few things I really loved, including my cropped linen Emerald tops, and a laundry cycle's worth of underwear.  

11. I dipped my toes into more challenging knitting, including lacework and colorwork, and find I have a an appetite for charted work. 

I also discovered some new-to-me designers and have enjoyed some new patterns.

12.  I discovered some truly enjoyable book series this year, including the All Souls Triology, The Court of Thorns and Roses series, and the Throne of Glass series.  The Throne of Glass series was an unexpected delight, and I binged all seven (rather large) books in about a month's time this fall.  I dipped back into the Court of Thorns and Roses series again this week in anticipation of the next book's release in February.  I guess I'm into supernatural fantasy now?

Wherever this year has taken you, and whatever difficulties you've experienced, I wish you peace and joy in the year ahead.

 

Happy New Year!

See ya on the flip side.

Yarn Along: Coriolanus and Mending

Longtime readers will know that I have a long-standing love affair with Shakespeare, and I find that when things look bleak, his work always has something to say to me.  The National Theater in London decided to offer some of its catalog of filmed live performances in limited free YouTube runs to raise money for the arts since the theaters remain closed.  

Last Thursday, 6/4, Coriolanus opened for a limited one-week run.  I've seen this (filmed) production before, and highly recommend it.  The Ralph Fiennes film version is also excellent, but I really like Josie Rourke's work and style, and the stripped down sets in the Donmar Warehouse pared with the minimalist costuming really let the words shine.  It's a very muscular performance.  We showed the play to the boys this weekend, and it was surprisingly resonant.  

Coriolanus is a play about a military hero who returns to Rome after an unlikely victory over northern invaders, and is pushed by his monstrous mother into a political position he neither desires nor is well-suited for.  He is a man consumed by anger against his enemies, who seeks revenge at every opportunity; the pivotal moment he learns to temper his rage and seek peace, he suffers greatly for it.  

It is also a play about the power and fickleness of the mob, and how things get twisted all out of shape by passions run amok.  There were so many lines that stayed with me, particularly the one about Coriolanus' all-consuming quest for revenge.  After Coriolanus is banished from Rome and joins forces with his former enemy to sack Rome, the Roman senator Menenius says:  "This Martius [Coriolanus] is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he’s more than a creeping thing."  

The free YouTube access will end this Thursday, so watch it while you can!  It is well worth the time.

In the middle of all that is going on in the world (and indeed, continuing in my own city), the small intimate details of daily goings on continue to color the tapestry of life.  School is officially out.  We had our last homeschool work on Friday, Piglet had his virtual graduation into Logic school (a big deal in the classical curriculum), and are now on "summer" break.  Whatever that means this year.  I'm sad for all that Piglet missed, but so so grateful for all the ways the school tried to celebrate the kids' transition to Logic school as best they could.  Mostly, I'm just relieved to not be teaching Ponchik (aka Captain Pokey Pants) right now.

I still can't write, because: lockdown (on yellow phase since Friday, but not that different from the red phase), so I've been sketching and coloring.  The above is a little composition I worked on last week.  I have a few other pencil sketches ready to color, but have other things I need to do this week before I get to that.  It is creatively satisfying, I'll say that.

I've been knitting a little here and there, but not with any real concentration.  I set aside my wool work for some linen yarn I had in the bin, leftover from the Gemini.  I decided to make a little summer shawl with it and am using the same Simply pattern as I was using on the tonal sock yarn from last month.  I don't love knitting with this yarn (as evidenced by how long it took me to finish the Gemini) but I want to use it up, and the color works well with my summer palette.

 My reading has been all over the place, but I finally cracked Kate Davies' Wheesht last week, and am finding much to ponder in it.  As with so much of her work, she manages to shine a light on things I had not considered before, to reframe ways of doing, and to think differently about the world.  All to say: I'm enjoying it immensely. 

The first chapter is about mending, so I present: my mending pile.  So.much.darning.  My only observation about the mending chapter is that while it is a good thing to mend, and to find meaning in darning, and creativity in the process, there is also a lot of dull drudgery in keeping up with mending for six people, three of whom are extremely hard on socks.  But still.  There is something to mending that which is broken, both physically and metaphysically, and one can inform the other.

This passage from the second chapter spoke to me as well:

It was a hard choice between her book and Who Fears Death as my next read, but decided Kate's work was worth a ponder at the moment.  Yuri Slezkine's In the House of Government just showed up this morning, but as it is a doorstop of a book, I think it will take some time to get through.   

We celebrated Pentecost yesterday, and the house has green leaves stuck various places, plus we had a small kitchen garden of edibles installed last week.  It is good for my soul to see green things growing.

 

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along.