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Deborah J. Brasket

~ Living on the Edge of the Wild

Deborah J. Brasket

Tag Archives: 2020

Joy Amid the Turmoil: A 2020 Recap

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by deborahbrasket in Blogging, Culture, Family, Political

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

2020, Blogging, Covid-19, life, new year, Politics

The year 2020 may have been the most turbulent year any of us have ever known. Blogging in such a year was challenge enough. Trying to recapture that whirlwind may be beyond any of us.

But I will try. And at least it ends on a note of joy.

Looking back at my first blog post of 2020, I wrote about how challenging 2019 had been. My wish list for 2020 was the same as my 2019 list, as one year had not been enough long to bring the happy endings that I had hoped for. My wish list for 2021 would be a repeat of the last two years, except I’ve put wish lists on hold for the time being. Things are too uncertain, and the turbulent times are still with us.

For me, the turmoil of 2020 did not begin with Covid, but blew in on the tailcoat of 2019 as I wrote about in From the Tailwinds of 2019, Hope Lost & Its Glimmer.” My February post “I’m Praying for You to Die” detailed more of the trauma. But Covid only compounded the turmoil, as noted in March’s post Homeschooling Again & Who’s the Boss.

In April I wrote about The Joy and Grief and Everything in Between that came with Covid, the mixed feelings and emotional turmoil so many were feeling as we tried to survive the initial lockdowns and isolation. We did not realize then how long all this would be going on, the horrendous death toll it would bring, or the economic disaster.

In May I wrote about Poetry in the Time of Corona. It must have resonated with a lot of readers as I saw it move into my :Top Ten Posts” list and rise to number 4.

In June during all the racial strife, the police brutality and protests, I began a series of posts about my “Brushes with Blackness,” how Black lives and Black culture colored my whiteness, and helped shape my sense of justice, fair play, and compassion for others.

In August I wrote the unsettling and surreal world in which we all were living in Still Waiting to Land . . . . I wrote: “Clearly we live in interesting times. A curse? Possibly. A cleansing? Hopefully. No wonder we feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under our feet. And we haven’t quite landed yet.” I still feel that way.

I followed that with Wildfires Everywhere, Politically and Literally about watching wildfires gobble up California and cast an eerie and ominous red glow over the land, even while the Democratic National Convention was providing a glimmer of hope midst all the devastation.

In September I wrote Grieving for America, and Getting Past It, and then my favorite, just after the election, Truth and Love Wins, and I Can Breathe Again.

Unfortunately the political turmoil did not end with Biden’s victory as hoped, and perhaps even has gotten worse, which seems unimaginable. Yet, for me personally, 2020 has still ended on one ecstatic note.

At the beginning of this year I wrote: “The one gift 2019 gave me (which is huge and fills my heart!) is hope for my granddaughter when she came to live with me. Hope that she will remain in my care, happy and safe, healthy and strong, responsibly cared for and dearly cherished as she grows into a young woman.”

That gift kept growing in 2020. Everything I had hoped and planned for concerning my granddaughter’s welfare came true, as I wrote about in My Arms Are Empty, but My Heart is Full. She is happy and well and living the life of her dreams with her aunt and uncle: surfing, hiking, biking, movie nights snuggling on the couch, reading the Harry Potter series together before bed, laughing with her new best friends at school, and telling me all about her fun-filled days on our weekly video-chats. She was asked recently what the best thing about 2020 was. She answered, “Moving here. Else I wouldn’t have this life I love.”

So for all the turmoil of 2020, and whatever upheaval 2021 might bring, I can comfort myself with that huge gift of joy.

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From the Tailwinds of 2019, Hope Lost & Its Glimmer

05 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by deborahbrasket in Family, Love

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

2020, Hope, life, new year, personal

hughesnighttrainstars

Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914), Night with her Train of Stars (1912)

I ended a blog post at the tail end of 2018 with this wish list for 2019:

A Look Ahead – What I Want Most

A happy ending for my son.

A happy ending for my novel.

More novel-writing, more painting, more blogging.

More artful living.

More Love. Lots and lots of love, for all of us.

My wish list for 2020 is much the same. For one year, it appears, was not long enough to fulfill these wishes.

The happy ending I’d hoped for my son seems less likely now than ever. His addiction has once again robbed him of everything he built during four years of sobriety.

The happy ending for my novel is still on hold. We took it off the market while I sent it to a professional editor. And the editing I had begun was postponed when my granddaughter came to live with me.

Instead of more writing, painting, and blogging in 2019, there was less and less. I did not blog or paint or write at all last month.

More artful living? More love for all of us?

Not so much last year.

The one gift 2019 gave me (which is huge and fills my heart!) is hope for my granddaughter when she came to live with me. Hope that she will remain in my care–happy and safe, healthy and strong, responsibly cared for and dearly cherished as she grows into a young woman.

May this blog post be the beginning of a bright new year for all of us.

 

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Recent Posts

  • A Young Poet and Rapper Throw Light on the State of Our Union
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  • The United States of Trump: A Fantasy
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After sailing around the world in a small boat for six years, I came to appreciate how tiny and insignificant we humans appear in our natural and untamed surroundings, living always on the edge of the wild, into which we are embedded even while being that thing which sets us apart. Now living again on the edge of the wild in a home that borders a nature preserve, I am re-exploring what it means to be human in a more than human world.

Recent Posts

  • A Young Poet and Rapper Throw Light on the State of Our Union
  • “The Fierce Urgency of Now”: Dismantling the Big Lie, Bridging the Big Divides
  • Joy Amid the Turmoil: A 2020 Recap
  • A Celtic Christmas, Favorite Carols
  • The United States of Trump: A Fantasy

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