If there is but one gift that 2020 brought to our small spinning globe, it is a real understanding of the transient nature of life. We have stood witness as industry and commerce and worship and governance and every aspect of our daily existence stalled. Death came calling too. To date COVID-19, something we had never heard of a short year ago, has extinguished 1.97 million lives: from your family to those in Mexico, from Iran to India, from China to the White House, COVID disrupted our every interaction and halted our every routine. Reflecting on 2020, I shudder to think of how much wine I consumed, how rarely I put on leather shoes to go do something professional, instead how many hours I doom-scrolled, fretted or cried or spent angry. Eager to hold onto our fleeting and magnificent lives despite all the restrictions, we retreated into our homes, and over the ensuing months began to read poetry and fiction again, used our phone to call friends, dreamt outlandishly about the future and recalled our best memories fondly, and even created something like love from that swirling ball of fear and chaos and forced void. We found, as Dickinson so aptly wrote, “Hope” is the thing with feathers. 
Category Archives: Life
Oh Christmas Tree
Perhaps this year more than any other, traditions hold greater sentiment, and finding that special Christmas tree to gather around is certainly one for me. While we may be apart this year, all our memories will hold us tight…Enjoy this repost from 2018 when we all did just that… xxoo
There is a cut-your-own tradition in Vermont with Christmas trees. Decades ago when my family first started to have Thanksgiving here, we’d tag our tree during that long weekend. Then, weeks later, we’d head back to the farm, with sled in tow and saw in hand, we’d try to find our special tree. There were years when we’d have to trudge through feet of snow, and on hands and knees, dig our way down to find the trunk. Frozen fingers wrapped around the saw we’d tug back and forth until it was cut through. Oh those fresh trees would fill the house with everything Christmas. Sweet pine. Cold air and snow. Even the mountain view came into our living room with that smell.
Carpe Diem
Today I was struck by the sentiment found in Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” which, ironically, was published posthumously in 1681. Carpe diem then, and now. Here are the tenets: “Carpe diem is a philosophy that took hold in Europe during and after the Black Death plague (1348-1350). The population had seen so much death and destruction that some people embraced the philosophy that every day is a moment to be made the most of, whether it be to eat or to love. All of life’s pleasures are to be indulged; there is no time for waiting because tomorrow might never appear” (CourseHero). Sounds like the perfect philosophy for life after the black plague, and most certainly the days post COVID19. I think we are universally on the crest of roaring back with fervor once more!
Nine Cent Girl 