The year we will never forget

No one knows how long the COVID-19 pandemic will be wreaking havoc on our world and communities. Everyone has been touched dramatically by the year and trauma that we've lived through.  I wonder often how much my kids (especially Niall, not yet three) will remember this time.  I've never so looked forward to having a year be behind us. As this blog is my journal of sorts, I wrote a reflective piece about the historic year we just survived.

This was the year

when we learned about a strange sickness

striking those in the East.

People were dying

an ocean away.

At first, it seemed like a remote and far-away danger.

"Just the flu," some said.

We enjoyed a blissful, child- and worry-free international vacation in the early months.

And, when we returned, there were so many other daily tasks and stressors,

that we could focus on the here and now, for a short time more,

before the world changed.

And then it came here.

And we were told to stay home,

to keep away from relatives,

to not let anyone in your home.

We were to mask up,

stay six feet away at all times,

and to read each other's eyes,

as our smiles and sometimes words

were obscured.

We canceled family time, trips, and outings.

We haven't seen a library, a church,

a restaurant, or a plane in almost a year.

We realized how much we could indeed sacrifice,

for the sake of keeping our neighbors safe.

We were reminded of how much we have taken for granted.

We (I) cried a lot.

We were anxious and sad.

We prayed.

We didn't know what the future would look like.

We didn't know how many weeks, months, or years this would be with us.

We couldn't see "the light at the end” or the way out.

We saw fires burning our backyard forests and across the globe.

We watched ash thicken our skies and block what little light remained.

We have never prayed so hard for rain.

We watched more black citizens be murdered

at the hands of the officials who are supposed to keep us safe.

We lost a civil rights icon,

and a champion for women everywhere in the eleventh hour.

We saw what misinformation, power, and evil can do

within our own borders and communities.

You missed out on the start of your formal education,

as there's been no "in-person" kindergarten allowed.

You throw around the verb "Zoom."

But you wear your mask like it’s nothing,

like you've been wearing one your whole short life,

as a small piece of fabric can’t get in the way of your very important play,

nor stifle your dreams.

Family, once so close,

have had to watch from afar as you became “so grown up,”

time on one hand moving at a snail’s pace,

and on the other, leaping forward,

distorted beyond our wildest imaginations.

You don't really know all that you're missing,

or how much we feel we’ve lost,

but yet you seem to recognize

that this is all temporary,

and one day will be a distant memory,

if you even remember it at all.

However, we will all be changed,

in ways we may not yet understand.

This was a year of so much pain and grief,

of loss of life, loss of livelihoods for some,

and loss of purpose for others.

We were travelers

with nowhere to go,

planners with nothing to plan.

We were doers with too much empty time.

We were healthcare workers,

frustrated at being dismissed and ignored,

angry yet jealous at others’ differing assessments of risk,

exhausted from long days of work,

but feeling too guilty to take a break.

We were "pandemic parents,"

charged with the responsibility of being also your playmates and teachers,

not knowing how to stimulate your impressionable young minds and souls,

or fill your cups,

while ours were empty.

But we also felt hope.

It was also a year of gain.

We grew closer as a small, four-person family.

We see you boys choosing to sleep nestled peacefully side by side

in one bed (when there are two in the room),

all of the daytime hours together maybe still not enough.

We celebrated birthdays and accomplishments

in unconventional ways.

Music re-entered and touched my life once again.

You became an artist and are finding true passions.

You learned to read,

while reading to escape reality is just about all I did.

We embraced the slow life,

time and space spent just being,

quiet,

still,

more "off" than "on."

It opened our eyes,

and gave us a gift we didn't know we wanted.

We found out how little we really need,

and what is truly important.

We lived on and loved our beaches, some of the most breathtaking land in the world.

We hunkered down in the beautiful corner of the country we are lucky to call home.

We explored the outdoors, but otherwise stayed local, safe, and healthy.

Even though we felt isolated and lonely,

we had each other.

And we had the privilege of technology to connect us across the blocks,

and miles,

with those we love

but whom we cannot yet see in the flesh.

During days without sun,

and nights without stars,

God was always by our side.

We saw the country make its voice heard,

its priorities known,

in an election of historic proportions,

and of momentous consequence,

despite an uphill battle,

and unprecedented divisiveness.

Americans dared to hope,

held their breath,

and risked everything to vote even during the worst global pandemic in a century,

and saw good triumph over evil in the end.

And we exhaled with relief.

We saw friends and families welcome new life into the world,

rainbow babies after the most barren and heartbreaking of times.

We connected with and kept our patients healthy,

through the barriers of screens, shields, and N95s.

We "flattened the curve" so that we adults could finally get our chance at vaccination

in these waning December days,

those shots the most wonderful Christmas gifts we could imagine.

We felt the heavy burdens be lifted,

just a little bit more,

and our hearts and souls were lighter.

We believe in science,

and have faith in miracles.

We know that darkness doesn't last forever.

As these winter days get longer, and the nights slip away,

favoring sunshine, light, spring, and brighter days ahead,

We are thankful for what, and whom,

we’ve kept close to us,

when so much has felt off-limits,

impossible,

and out of reach.

We are looking forward to good times,

and many more great years in front of us,

as joy always comes in the morning.

2020 is a year for the history books,

one that none of us will ever forget in our lifetimes.

We are so blessed to be among the survivors.

While shaken, we weren’t broken.

We were struck down, but not destroyed.

We have made it through,

hearts and dreams intact,

stronger and more resilient.

And we are hopeful and ready for all that the New Year brings.

2020 in photos

Here are some of my most notable blog posts from 2020:

Patagonia part 1 (adults-only vacation)

A Consequential Knee (Remembering George Floyd)

The School Debate 

Letter to my son (Corona Kindergarten)

Crater Lake Getaway

R.I.P, R.B.G. 

A Historic Election

Healthcare Workers' moral injury

Got the Shot

Top Ten Books of 2020

I LOVE TO READ (even in non-pandemic times!). With more time at home and not many other weekend outlets, I read a lot of books in 2020 (seventy-two to be exact by my Goodreads tally!), which is probably the most in any year in recent memory. There were so many good ones and sometime in March, I started to compile them in a Facebook "Quarantine Reads" album, but which is harder to do in blog form. However, as I did last year, I will here detail my top ten reads of 2020!  I tend to enjoy historical fiction, social justice-themed books, and heartwarming memoirs and novels (and I needed a hefty dose of hope this year in my books; on the other hand, reading about past pandemics or troubled times gave me some much-needed perspective). I hope you enjoy these titles as much as I did, and please send along suggestions of your best reads in recent memory that you think I'd enjoy! 

I loved Lori Gottlieb's memoir, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Gottlieb, herself a writer and a therapist, chronicles her own journey attending her own counseling sessions after a sudden and traumatizing break-up. In meeting with her own "neutral" professional therapist, as well as touching on the stories of the patients she has met over the years, she discovers much more about her own shortcomings and strengths, personal transformation and growth, and what's truly important in life.  You will laugh and cry reading this heartwarming book (and wonder why you didn't start your own therapy!).

Vanishing Half is a beautiful novel about family and race. It tells the story about a pair of twin black (but light-skinned) sisters, Stella and Desiree, whose paths diverge after they escape from their tiny Louisiana hometown. Stella lives a life based on lies "passing" as white and Desiree, a single mother, raises her (darker-skinned) daughter to remember her roots-- despite their choices, these two "halves" will always remain connected based on their shared history.  Brit Bennett is a skilled writer and storyteller and it was hard to put this book down until its final page! 

I remember reading Chanel Miller's memoir, Know my Name while in a Ecodome in Patagonia in February. A gripping tale, it details her family background and upbringing, and then focuses on the life-changing assault at the hands of Brock Turner, a then-Stanford student, and the traumatic aftermath involving the legal system and her own belittlement at the hands of those who so often discredit women's stories and experiences at the expense of believing and protecting the privileged. Chanel struggles to be strong and truthful, but shows her vulnerability as well as the complexity that comes with not wanting to be pigeon-holed as a victim alone. This incredible story and this remarkable woman will make you outraged, but also teach you a lot about suffering, redemption, and forgiveness.

Ghosted was a gripping and fast-paced fictional read about Sarah and Eddie, two thirty-something English people who fall in love after an intense week near their hometowns. After the blissful week, Eddie seems to fall of the face of the earth, ignoring calls and texts from Sarah with no explanation. You will turn pages late into the night finding out the true story of why. My stomach dropped, I laughed, and I cried as I sped through this un-put-downable story.  This is certainly one of the most compelling and sweet love stories I've read this decade!

Rage Against the Minivan was a refreshingly honest and sweet book by biological and adoptive parent Kristen Howerton, on the topics of race (as she has both black and white kids), parenting, her Christian faith, and the power of love. Reading this book felt like a huge warm hug amidst the isolation and pandemic parenting challenges of 2020.  I would love to be friends with this author and mom!

Fever was an extremely informative and interesting (and timely given our current pandemic!) book by the author of Ask Again, Yes (another book I read this year) detailing the life of Mary Mallon, an Irish-born cook who, as an asymptomatic typhoid carrier, repeatedly sickened members of prominent New York families and other residents and lived the rest of her life in exile due to her repeated offenses causing outbreaks across the city while struggling to make a living in the only way she knew how. 

American Dirt is a thrilling read, the humanizing story of a mother (Lydia) and her son Luca as they escape the threat of cartel violence in her hometown of Acapulco, to cross the border into the the U.S.  It is fiction, but anyone who reads this will truly empathize with the real and lived experiences of those who flee unsustainable circumstances for them and their children and take incredible risks for the chance at a better future. This book, obviously incredibly relevant in these times under the soon-to-be-over administration, was somewhat controversial when it came out, as the author is not a Mexican immigrant; however, she writes with an authenticity that makes you forget that fact, and the story is one that all Americans should read. 

If you don't already adore Barack Obama, it may be hard to get through 700 pages of (volume 1 of) his presidential memoir, but if you commit, you will come away even more impressed by his domestic and foreign policy accomplishments, despite outrageous GOP-led obstructionism. He is inspirational as always, describing his challenges as both a devoted family man (with a wife I can identify with who was sometimes less than supportive of his ambition!) and free world leader, constantly straddling the line of progress and pragmatism, chronicling his remarkable rise in Illinois and national politics through the raid on Osama bin Laden. It's so disheartening to think that the same country that could elect a man of his humility, intelligence, and grace could also choose a man like his successor. Nevertheless, may we all maintain his true belief in the goodness and possibility of America--that hard things are worth the effort, and hope is what sustains us. (I also loved his wife Michelle Obama's book Becoming, which was one of my favorites I read in 2019).

I definitely needed some hopeful books in 2020 and The Girl with the Louding Voice was one of the best at eliciting this feeling in me. It is the the uplifting (while heartbreaking at times as its the struggle of so many girls around the world) story of Adunni, a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who fights poverty, child marriage, and servitude to continue to dream of education and a better future.

There is a reason that Isabel Wilkerson's 2010 book, The Warmth of Other Suns, was on the e-book hold list for over six months until it came time to be my turn to check it out from the electronic library. I think this might have been the best book I have read this year (and was one of the most recent). Wilkerson chronicles the history of the exodus of millions of African Americans from the Jim Crow south in their journeys to the "free" north and west in the time period of 1915-1975 or "The Great Migration," through the true stories of three extraordinary-while-still-ordinary people, Ida Mae Brandon Gladney (from Mississippi to Chicago), George Swanson Starling (Florida to NYC), and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster (Louisiana to Los Angeles).  For these people to leave everything they've ever known to migrate to unfamiliar (and cold) cities and states, facing the profound depths of the unknown, just shows how dehumanizing and dangerous it was to be a black person in the deep South (and arguably still is, even while things are better).  Some struggles continued even as they lived in the "free" states, and their stories bring up the complicated question of "when do you stay to make the best of your circumstances and location (and hope for/fight for change), and when do you just leave it all behind?" This historic migration changed our country's history forever, and in light of a still-changing but still problematic South, demonstrates the resilience that embodies the American spirit in the toughest of circumstances. This was a long (600+ page) book, but it was well worth the time and emotional investment and, in my opinion, should be required reading for anyone living in the United States (especially in the South). I look forward to reading Wilkerson's newest book, Caste, when I have a chance.

There were so many other great books I read this year (hop over to my FB feed if you need more ideas), but I narrowed this list to ten. My best-ten-read-in-2019 list can be found here. What words and books brought you hope, joy, and escape in 2020?  Even though there are always "too many books, not enough time," I'm looking forward to a full (virtual or physical) nightstand full of books in 2021 (even though I hope to have the option of some other, safe out-of-the-house outlets!)!

Our Sabbath Sands

How blessed we are to live minutes from the secluded northern California Coast. Some of Trinidad's beaches, including Luffenholtz, Moonstone, and Baker Beach, have truly been our quarantine haven this year, and usually where we spend our Sunday mornings (where I often listen to New Heart's church service with my wireless earbuds as we watch the kids play and watch the rolling ocean waves). We're lucky that the beaches can usually be enjoyed year-round, except when it's pouring rain. It does really feel like worship, witnessing God's beauty on earth and praising Him in this peaceful space.

 So many treasures....

Hermit crabs!

...sticks!

This past Sunday morning, it was extremely high tide at Baker Beach and so we headed a bit farther north to College Cove, where the encroaching waves still made Iver nervous but we had more of a rocky buffer on which to sit! We had beautiful sunny weather and got some spectacular shots!

I am so thankful every week for our beautiful surroundings. We truly couldn't ask for a better place to ride out this pandemic. These beaches truly seem like God's cathedral and our Sunday morning visits have been our Sabbath ritual this year.

Christmas 2020: The One When We Stayed Home (Alone)

This is quite the year to remember (don't we all want it to be over?).  While many people may have orchestrated "socially distanced" Christmases, or, having recovered from COVID, felt safe to visit with friends and/or out-of-town family, it was a quiet day of us four alone in these parts, after the Silent, Holy Night.

We worked yesterday, and Kelvin got his first COVID-19 Moderna vaccine as a Christmas Eve gift! Whoop whoop (but his arm is very sore, like mine was).

The kids put out a note, cookies, and "reindeer food" for Santa and his crew before retiring on Christmas Eve.  Iver didn't sleep well as he was too excited!

Santa ate it all up...

... and delivered.

Thanks to extremely generous family members, the kids spent all morning opening and playing with various gifts (with some boxes still untouched because it was just so overwhelming!).  The Speedster remote-controlled cars from my sister/Marco and a kids' digital camera from Katherine were some of the favorites. 

Inside the AirFort

I listened to the taped Christmas service of Redeemer Lutheran (my old church in McLean).

We FaceTimed with my parents and, later, sister Vanessa with Marco.

It was a pretty rainy day but went on a couple of walks, and Iver and I watched Home Alone during Niall's nap.

"Christmas Dinner" for us four included Hot and Sour soup I made from a NYT cooking recipe, and take-out Chinese food Kelvin bought.  MMM. 

We then drove around on another one of the holiday light routes recommended in our town.  

Friends fans will appreciate this (and the blog title)!

This house impressively had its light synced to 99.5 and we witnessed Trans Siberian Orchestra's Carol of the Bells!

Niall was a cranky Scrooge today, and refused to smile for a photo with me, nor eat dinner, but we finally tricked him into one shot by the tree.

In other, "Christmas pics," here are some more of Iver's recently drawn cartoons (Christmas-themed).

Mistletoe

The Grinch

Nutcracker

Buddy the Elf!

School gingerbread house

 Very Hygge at home

We sincerely hope that next year and next year's holiday season may include connecting with our dear families, but we made the best of our low-key "quarantine" Christmas. It was actually quite a gift to wake up in our own home and to not have any of the stresses of holiday travel. Joy, peace, hope, and love to you! Merry COVID Christmas!