I don’t know about you, but I am stressed. Gee, I wonder why?
I am totally excited to share some great news! In May 2020, I received not one but two offers to publish my next book!
We are outraged. We are outraged when we see someone without a mask. Outraged when asked to wear a mask. Outraged with every headline. Outraged by every comment on social media. Outraged before breakfast. After lunch. During dinner. In our dreams. It’s an epidemic. And I’m convinced our outrage is more destructive than the coronavirus. How Destructive Is Outrage?
A longtime friend of mine retired at the end of last year. That feels like an eternity ago given that our world has been turned upside down, doesn’t it? Jane is one of the people who is actually kind of enjoying the pandemic, if you can say that of anyone. It’s prevented her from throwing herself into a lot of activities that might have filled her initial retirement life. Instead, she is sleeping, walking, cooking, and reading more than she has in five decades. “It’s such a luxury!” she says.
In an interview on NPR, Eliese Goldbach, the author of Rust, talked about working in a steel mill during the recession of 2008. When asked how her ideas about steelworkers changed during her three years there, she explained that they weren’t just one type of person.
As I am writing this, it is a spectacular day here in New Hampshire. The sun is absolutely brilliant and I’m watching my solar panels app trace a perfect sinusoidal curve that means we will soon be back to generating more than enough electricity to supply our home and a good portion of the energy needed for our electric car. Long before spring makes itself felt in our bones, that smooth, broadening curve alerts us to the rising trajectory of the sun. We blink into the glare and guess how many more days until the afternoon rays completely clear the tall pines to the southwest so that the generation curve can continue its perfect arc.
It’s Leap Day. A whole extra bonus day! And, yet, it doesn’t feel that way. Here I am finishing my newsletter instead of doing something unusual on this gift we receive only once every four years. Why? Because I didn’t recognize the gift, protect it, and plan ahead to savor it. I could have made this a celebratory day shared with good friends. I didn’t. There is an important lesson in this.
I have received many newsletters from colleagues filled with predictions for 2020 so I decided to do the same! In my own way, of course!