amyarden – Amy Arden

2022: A Retrospective

January 2, 2023 No Comments

In writing reflections on a past event – especially an entire year, especially on a digital platform – I struggle to find the right tone. Too bright, and it might feel fake, toxically positive, or even arrogant. Too somber, and it can come across as a slough of negativity.

I’ll do my best to steer between those two extremes. There were good things, hard things, sad things. I felt friendships shift and fade. I was ghosted (twice) and stood up (once). The relationship I was most excited about, a tantalizing multi-month series of dates during which I caught hope – and feelings – ended via a cold text. I experienced professional challenges that required every bit of my patience and discipline to navigate. Despite being drafted in Las Vegas, my fantasy football team did not make it to the playoffs. And for the last night of 2022, I attended a party where the highlight of the event was thumbing through a biography of the Brontës.

And yet. And yet. I am a stubborn optimist, and that isn’t all of the story.

At midlife, I took on spring break for the first time. It was hot and sunstruck and a little disorienting. In fact, it became just the adventure I needed.
In that vein, I decided that it was never too late to let a little rebellion into my life. Guitar playing, obviously. But there was also the winter night I laughed and listened to punk in my date’s pickup in a parking lot. Afternoons spent loitering in public parks like a delinquent. Numerous small trespasses against propriety: the flick of a lighter, the use of the f-bomb, a refusal to take up less space.
I finally watched Sleepless in Seattle. I devoured Ozark, which made me cry. And Bridgerton, which didn’t. Also both seasons of Sanditon just for the heck of it. (I have yet to see E.T. or any of the Rocky films.)
I went to the opera. Alone. (It was great.)
I swam 20,000 yards at the local pool. My tan was killer.
I emerged from comparative isolation and got busy re-building my social life. I took over a Meetup group, renamed it, and nearly tripled the membership. I went on 22 first dates*. I got new business cards. I attended book club discussions after having actually read the book.
I made a few new friends. In adulthood, that’s no small feat. We need people to laugh with. People to speak our truths to. To eat burritos with, go to for advice, share a hug. If anything, 2022 taught me not to take good connections for granted.
I got a new writing desk. In fact, that where I am typing this right now.
And I finally started to learn that my feelings are not liabilities I need to repress, but signals to pay attention to.

Of course, there are things that haven’t changed. I still miss my motorcycle. I still have my fascination with Eminem. There are still my wildling cats that make me laugh, and the books I turn to for comfort like a quilt.

As far as what’s ahead, I don’t have resolutions so much as intentions. I want to get back to Paris. I want to finally finish my damn novel. I want to get through all of “Tonight, Tonight” so that it sounds – and feels – like a song. Plus, the Les Paul guitar I’ve been eyeing.

And there’s this:

We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell

*Defined as 1:1 in-person, predesignated meetings. Video chats and random unassigned hangouts not included in total.

Music

Amped

November 20, 2022 No Comments

It’s been six months since I bought my guitar. Six months, and I’m not really sure what I have to show for it. More stuff, sure. As in, I own more gear now: an assortment of picks, a gig bag, and a real, honest-to-goodness Orange amp. (I love that amp. Even hearing the little kick of feedback sometimes when I flip the power on makes my heart get warmer.)

I’ve started taking lessons. Actual lessons, in which I sit on a wooden chair in my teacher’s living room and we go through chords, and scales, and where to find individual notes on the guitar (because nothing is simple with guitar and a single string contains multiple notes.) We talk about arpeggios. Bits of the music theory and terms I grudgingly learned from piano lessons and voice lessons somehow resurface. I nod. Yes, quarter notes, I know those. Whole notes, half notes, eighth notes. Triplets. Allegro. Fortissimo. Staccato.

My nails are so short I no longer bother with polish. Not that I did much before. And the fingertips of my left hand, if not exactly calloused, are no longer as soft as they used to be.

Hard skills are a little trickier to quantify. A tally of my accomplishments might look something like this:

Chords learned = 6.5

Songs played (as in, attempted) = 13

Hours practiced = ?

I’ve touched music from Johnny Cash, Marilyn Manson, the Smashing Pumpkins. Pearl Jam. Bob Dylan. The Cranberries. Ozzy Osbourne. Beethoven. I can read tabs now. (Kinda.) I know about non-standard tuning. In fact, today I just downloaded an app that allows me to access dozens of non-standard tunings, and chords for hundreds of songs. I stumbled my way through “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran and felt weirdly accomplished, like a kid who’d taken the training wheels off her bike for the first time. To be clear, my playing wasn’t good. I saw a quote online that read “Learning guitar chords is like playing Twister with your fingers.” In my experience that’s been true. But the song was recognizable. And more importantly, a thing I could not have done 6 months ago today became possible.

I bought a guitar because I wanted to learn songs, that’s true. And of course ,the rebelliousness, the thrill of dabbling in rock n’roll and all that entails from the safety of my living room. I like the visceral thrill of making sound. And then making it louder.

But the truth behind the truth is this: I want to be better at slacking off.

In case any musicians or slackers are reading this and feel offended, hang on and hear me out. I understand that “better” and “slacking off” are inherently opposed. You can’t get better at something when the idea is to not try at all. It’s ludicrous. And I get that.

I also get that learning an instrument is a considerable investment of time and energy. Musical talent, like any talent, needs to be developed. Anyone who makes playing the guitar look easy, who can fall to their knees onstage mid-riff and throw their head back, still playing, like Jimi Hendrix (like the guy I saw last night), can only do that because they’ve put in hours and hours of effort. And it probably looked terrible for a long time before it looked cool.

But here’s the rub: all my life, I’ve been a bad slacker. It costs me considerable effort to do nothing. It is an act of will to ignore responsibilities and simply indulge myself.

I didn’t lack for opportunities, or inspiration, or examples. As a teenager in the 1990s, slackerism was all around me. This was when shopping at the Salvation Army was what the cool kids did, and “couch-surfing” entered the regular American lexicon. Slacking even drifted into my college years in the early aughts, with hackeysack games being regularly played on my campus quad and plenty of people listening to Phish. Except while my peers were playing hackeysack, I was typing up a term paper. Or at my work-study job. Or at my off-campus job. Or peer tutoring.

This hustle didn’t stop in graduate school, or in the early years of my career, or in more recent decades. Even the pandemic had me picking up a second job and joining the board of a local nonprofit. I also got an online certificate in game design and wrote a novel.

So, yeah. Much as I want to get “good” at guitar, there is also a desire to stop caring about the outcome, to stop measuring my proficiency. To let that sh*t go. And, you know, to just do it.

To simply be in the world “being,” and not earning my keep by “doing.” That’s the gift that my guitar gives me. As if I needed one. Because in this rare case, feeling is enough.

Writing

Anchoring

July 16, 2022 No Comments

This summer I am revising a novel. It isn’t the first time. Or the second. In fact, I’ve lost count of what revision round this is. The 4^th? The 7^th? The 17^th? All I know is that the manuscript–the complete first full draft–was produced in 2015. And I’ve been revising it off and on ever since.

Sometimes I stepped away for years. And in those years, wrote entirely new books. Sometimes I took the manuscript to workshops so it could be torn apart and put back together. Sometimes I didn’t write at all. There were days, weeks, months when I just existed.

But the story always called to me. I knew I hadn’t put it away forever. I knew someday I would come back. And so I did, cautiously. For the book had been made and unmade so many times that I could hardly see its original shape beneath the cuts, the rewrites, the false starts. What was this thing that I labored to create? What was its soul? Where was its soul?

I told myself I had good reasons for not writing. A different job, a different house. The ongoing challenges of the pandemic. And not least of all, that I had lost my writing desk.

I didn’t need the desk to write. I’d written in plenty of odd places, at odd times. The sweltering porch of a bed and breakfast on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. On an Amtrak train bound for New York. A morning in the dark predawn at a near-empty diner. Starbucks. My dining room table.

But those weren’t at my desk. Those weren’t in the space that was my own, that I could sit at and let the ideas come (or not) and type them and fight with them and chase the sparks that would propel me forward. My desk was where things had happened: three novels, countless articles, hours and hours of notes and staring and scribbling.

Without the desk, I was anchorless. Or so I told myself. How could I recover the essence of a novel when I literally could not get back to the place where I had written it? How could I find the center of something when the path to it was gone?

I moped. I mourned. I halfheartedly browsed for another desk, looking at secondhand furniture sites and bougie boutiques. But I didn’t want someone else’s desk. And I didn’t want a new one. The solution became apparent: I would make one for myself. I’d find something that spoke to me. Strip it of its former character. Claim is as my own.

And so I did. The battered thing I found had seen hard use. It cost me next to nothing; snow flurries spit from the sky as a kind warehouse employee helped load it into my car. But it had character. Untapped potential. I brought it home. Cleaned it. Sanded down the damaged veneer, painted it in shades of cream and blue that reminded me of the sea.

It is transformed. It is mine.

And the novel is transforming too. I am giving my heroine not just a voice, but a pulse. A vulnerability.

For art is not about perfection. It is about the mess. The imperfect moments of our lives. Our second guesses. Our failures. Our flashes of clarity. Our glimpses of love. Our courage, our fear.

And so I write, not to divorce my heroine from those things, but to put her into the thick of them. To give her a reason for carrying on. And for me to follow, to go up the stairs, to sit at the desk. To keep the story going.

Music

An Axe to Grind

May 23, 2022 No Comments

I’m the proud owner of an electric guitar. A Squier Bullet Stratocaster, in fact. (It’s blue. And shiny.) It sits in the corner of my dining room, waiting for me to play it – which I have, every night since I brought it home, which happened to be a Friday the 13^th. Three days before a full moon, and two days before a blood moon lunar eclipse. I don’t know if the stars aligned on the timing of my purchase, but it seems the moon certainly did.

I could give all kinds of reasons for walking into a guitar store in the suburbs of Pittsburgh that night and walking out with an electric guitar. Was it fate? Boredom? Impulse?

Doubtless all played some role. But the truth is simply this – I wanted to make some noise. And I was tired of waiting for it to come into my life through other means. I was tired of “someday” and “maybe” and “later.” I wanted music, I wanted sound, and I wanted them to come from me.

This was not my first musical adventure: I had been subjected to piano lessons in childhood. It wasn’t even my first brush with guitar (see Playing Johnny Cash in Quarantine). But it was the first time when the choice of instrument was entirely mine, the first time I could make a decision driven not only by looks and purpose, but also feel.

The cerebral sank back; the visceral rose to the surface.

In fact, walking into the guitar store that night it was the culmination of a long, slow, silent rebellion that began in the summer of 1985. Then I was five years old, learning to play piano by ear. (I was taught by Suzuki method, which meant I spent hours in my room listening to cassette tapes, learning songs by listening instead of reading music.) I heard songs, played them, and forgot them. Because I had no hunger for nice pieces by classical composers. There was nothing in that music that left me wanting more.

I took a breath and walked over to the wall of guitars that hung from floor to ceiling. It was dazzling, really: colors, shapes, sizes, with the least expensive ones near the bottom and the fancier ones dangling well out of reach. But I had come prepared. Both with the image of how I imagined my rocker self – black jeans, black t-shirt, chunky metal earrings, a sweep of shining copper eyeliner – and a list of what I was interested in. After a few cautious moments of exploration, I found it.

Feeling both sheepish and exhilarated, I cornered a teenage salesclerk to ring me up.

“You already have cables? And a practice amp?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. (I lied.)

“Ok, cool.”

Then this: Me, breaking into spontaneous laughter the entire drive home. Me, carrying the box upstairs like a holy relic and laying it down on the bed. Cutting carefully with the scissors as I slice through the packing tape. Peeling back the wrapping. Me, picking the guitar up for the first time and smiling.

I have to learn everything. Where to connect the strap. How to hold a pick, how to place my fingers. Which ends of the cable go where when I finally get around to plugging into the amp. I spend an hour in the kitchen that night with the guitar and a tuning app, fighting an uphill battle to get low E to be less godd*mn flat. And I laugh and keep trying. When starting from zero, every gain in knowledge feels exponential.

I learn the names of the strings. I figure out how to turn on one pickup, or two, or three. (First I have to learn what pickups are.) I play my first riff. It is halting and awkward and perhaps I am the only one who could recognize what I am doing. Then I play it again, and again, and again. I play it louder.

For it is a rare instance in my life when the outcome doesn’t matter. I don’t have to be good. I don’t have to play at all. But I will. Because play is a gift. Music is a gift. Holding that guitar unlocks something in me. And I laugh and rock on.

To be continued…

Feminism, Travel

Sprung

March 29, 2022 No Comments

There comes a point in every woman’s life when she has simply had enough. When a yoga session or a shot of whiskey (or kombucha) or ugly crying while listening to Adele simply won’t cut it. When griping to friends, or a therapist, can no longer suffice. When the situation requires stronger, more drastic, more radical measures. Measures that some might say are selfish. Measures that might not be life-changing, but certainly bend it, make it less rigid.

I reached that point earlier this month.

But before I proceed to describe my mid-life Spring Break, I acknowledge that I am damn lucky, and privileged, to have even had the option. It was with excitement and guilt and second-guessing that I bought my ticket, booked my hotel, stepped onto an airplane.

Yet I knew, in my bones, that it was time. It had been, after all, two plus years of living alone, working from home, cooking and eating hundreds of meals in solitude. At times I reveled in the silence; at other moments, I felt profoundly isolated.

There was being laid off, and then working two jobs, and then worrying if I needed to start panic buying toilet paper and canned goods.

There was the death of my grandmother from COVID-19.

There is near-endless uncertainty.

And there is my dog, my sweet, lovable, wonderful dog, who has chronic medical issues that require both regular visits to a veterinary dermatologist and an array of treatments that makes my head spin.

I needed out. Just for a little while. But I most certainly needed out.

My destination: Miami. Hot, sunny, Spanish-speaking Miami. Miami, of sandy beaches and spring breakers. (One of my Uber drivers, God bless him, actually asked if I was on spring break. Yes, I look younger than I am, but not that young…so either my mask hides a lot, or he really needed a good tip.)

My plan: Do as little as possible. I’d never visited Miami Beach before and had few preconceived notions of what to expect, beyond palm trees and heat. (I was not disappointed in either).

My outbound flights took me through New York, via JFK. It was a cold but gloriously sunny day, and as the plane began its descent, all of New York Harbor, with its ships and patches of ice floating in the waves, was visible from the plane window. I almost started to weep. The sense of openness, of possibility, of freedom was overwhelming. I was moving again. And a part of my soul that I’d been missing came winging back.

Touching down in Miami several hours later, night had fallen. I stared out of the cab’s window like a country bumpkin as I was driven from the airport. Air conditioning in March was a novelty to me, as was the city lights, the water, the boats, the neon illumination. I drank it all in.

And I accomplished what I’d set out to do.

I spent hours in the sun, either poolside or at the beach. The ocean, which I had not seen in years, looked sublimely beautiful. Its colors, the light, the breeze all forms of magic. I felt the salt water on my skin, let the waves lift and carry me as I faced the sky and felt wonderfully, madly, happy.

I wasn’t entirely still, of course. I walked. A lot. From the Lincoln Road Mall to the Miami Botanical Gardens to the bougie juice bar where I paid $10 for some cold-pressed concoction of superfoods. One morning I biked the entire length of Ocean Drive. I visited Little Havana, bought cigars, drank rich and wonderful Cuban coffee and ate a guava pastry and spent the rest of the day practically high from the mix of caffeine and sugar.

And the heat. I’d left gray skies and freezing temperatures behind me. Light and warmth was what I wanted. And so I let my toes and legs and shoulders go bare, only to find that my skin could tolerate frustratingly small doses of the sunshine. Too much overwhelmed even my SPF-loaded lotions and I had to retreat indoors or under shade.

Yet there was, as is always hoped for with vacations, a blessed release from obligations. I took this a step further and seized upon what felt like a revolutionary level of autonomy. I answered to no one. There was no other party with whom to coordinate plans, discuss dinner options, or agree upon an itinerary. I ate when I wanted, slept when I wanted, woke when I wanted. It was the best thing I could have done for myself.

I was not alone in this. I saw other solo women: sunbathing at the beach, having appetizers and wine on the terrace, going about their days. I shared smiles with some of them. Because this is our world, too. And we had decided, singly and boldly, to put our feet down.

Postscript:

I remained fully aware of global events transpiring during, and after, my travels. I’ve proudly given support to the Ukrainian Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Come Back Alive, and other humanitarian organizations.

The Kyiv Independent provides English-language coverage of events in Ukraine.

You can also view amazing art from Ukrainian artists and illustrators showing their perspectives on events in their country.

Uncategorized

More Than a Feeling

February 19, 2022 No Comments

The future is a hard thing to imagine, especially when just managing day-to-day life in the present feels so unpredictable. And yet I’m letting myself go there. To explore possibility. To wonder what might yet be found.

My previous post, Feme Sole, was written from a retrospective mindset. Not gonna lie: 2021 was the hardest year of my life. Hands down. That may have been the case for a lot of people. And yet – and yet – this too shall pass. Perhaps even now we see light.

Which raises the question – what next?

Banff, Canada.

The pandemic, and even my life before the pandemic, taught me how capable I am. Responsible, reliable, conscientious. And those are great qualities to have. But when they are one-sided, its exhausting. I’ve found that in many relationships, for most of my life (this includes family, friendships, workplace, romantic interests), I’ve taken pains to be the most likeable, most competent, least demanding version of myself. When there is imbalance, it tends to work out swimmingly for the other party, and not so well for me.

In midlife, I am flipping the script. I have the audacity to hold expectations. And the presumption to voice them.

So much for the theory. What about the practice? What about real-life application? What about… dating?

Here’s the deal: If we go out, I will show up. I’ll be polite and punctual and most likely send a text while I’m parking. I’ll have makeup on, and possibly be wearing hiking boots, or maybe the cute shoes I bought in Paris, depending on the activity.

I’ll laugh at your jokes. I’ll maintain eye contact. I will stay off my phone and hope – please – you do the same.

Midway through I’ll excuse myself, grab my purse, and take off to the ladies’ room where I will either text my sister or a friend to let them know how things are going. And to assure them I’m not dead. I’ll do the same once I get home.

When the bill comes and if I have a chance to jump in, I’ll offer to split it and mean it. (I don’t need your money.) In reality, a lot of external markers mean very little to me. I don’t make decisions about someone based solely on the occupation they hold, the salary they earn, the height they are. (Although, it would be nice if you’re taller so that I can wear heels and not feel weird on the 3 occasions a year when I’m in the mood to do so.)

I have a career and a title and a salary. I don’t need to borrow your prestige. I don’t need to borrow any toughness, either. I have that on my own, too. (With the ink and the scars to prove it. Also the facts that I was laid off, got divorced, found a new job, wrote a novel, and bought a house on my own during the pandemic. Say what you will, I get sh*t done.)

What I want is this: to not be asked to make myself smaller. Not to have the price of our connection be contingent on my being less than what I am. In time, to come to trust you enough so that I don’t have to be so self-reliant. To sit on the couch, or on a mountainside, or at the beach and genuinely relax, not because I’ve decided to stop being “so uptight” but because you have created a space where, for a time, you’ve taken care of everything and I don’t have to.

To not be behind or in front of me, but beside. And to say – truthfully – “We’ve got this.”

Feminism

Feme Sole

December 24, 2021 No Comments

“Carefree” is s hardly a word to describe anyone’s state of mind these days. “Liberated” is another unlikely adjective; same goes for “hopeful.”

And yet – and yet – I find myself feeling all of these things. Not every day, and not often all at once. They are certainly not the only emotions I experience. But all of these feelings are nonetheless present. And I’m leaning in.

My sense of freedom, I suspect, derives in large part from being currently unattached. No husband, no partner, no child. There are days when this creates a degree of loneliness. Sometimes the loneliness is so deep as to be tangible. Sometimes cynicism bites unexpectedly, and I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes at an adorable young couple, or stifle the hitch in my breath from a sudden rush of poignancy at seeing a parent and child.

Yet as the months have passed and the year closes, I think less about what potential losses come hand-in-glove with singledom, and more on the possibilities that my independence creates.

I’ve learned how to do a lot of things. How to add weatherstripping around a doorframe. How to connect a PS4 and then an antenna to skirt around exorbitant cable fees. I bought a cordless drill (along with a set of titanium bits and a toolbox), and have used it to install a ceiling light, put in a shelf that I made myself, and attach curtain rods. Small things, perhaps, but these little flashes of capability still feel damn good.

I’ve learned introspection and how to make honest, uncomfortable reckonings with myself. I learned that it’s OK to eat cake and take time to ride my fake Peloton. I’ve learned that love comes in many guises, and that compassion is a gift for which demand far exceeds supply. I’ve learned that no matter how much duress the world inflects, we all still have a duty to abide by right and wrong. I know what makes me happy. And I know a little more of how I might find it.

And so I go on. On into the pleasures of everyday things that are nonetheless glorious: a mug of coffee on a cold morning, shared laughter (even if it’s over Skype), the warm shape of a cat curled beside me. I go on into the life that I built. Into the life that I am building.

And I think – perhaps with a little pride, perhaps with a little wistfulness – of the words attributed to another independent woman:

“I will have here but one mistress and no master.”
~ Elizabeth I

Uncategorized

Tabula Rasa

August 1, 2021 2 Comments

Fact: I have too much stuff. I’ve known this since well before Marie Kondo and tidying up became a cultural phenomenon. Since before “edit” became an activity no longer reserved simply for manuscripts or films, but now has haute connotations applied to everything from cosmetics to jewelry to home furnishings.

My stuff, on the whole, is neither fashionable nor glamourous. Much of it I’ve been boxing up and carrying around with me for years. Decades, even. Handwritten letters from overseas penpals and junior high classmates. Theater tickets, bookmarks, notebooks from college courses long since completed.

All of it marking an intersection of memory and material object that – somehow – I can’t yet bear to part with.

Urban art. South Side Flats, Pittsburgh PA. July 2021.

Even if these things no longer serve a practical purpose in my day-to-day, they are proof of who I was. All the selves I’ve been, every milestone or throwaway moment of my life marked. The bright orange t-shirt from a 5K race on a crisp October morning. Yes, a relatively short distance, but for me, momentous. It was the first race I completed after tearing my MCL and spending the better part of a year with orthopedists and physical therapists, fearing I’d never be able to run again.

The postcards from France showing colorful vintage illustrations of the Cote d’Azur. Invoices from dental treatments to reconstruct bone and tissue in my jaw. Family albums. The eulogy I wrote for my marriage, and then burned (but not before snapping a photo of the text).

If these things go, what evidence do I have – save memory, which is surely fallible – that I ever was that girl, that woman?

But I can’t take it with me, as the line from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play goes. At the end of the month, I am leaving this house forever. What better time for tidying up and cutting loose? What more apt juncture to consciously release what is no longer needed? When better to intentionally choose what comes with me?

These past weeks, I’ve been setting myself to brush off the dust and survey the goods. There are the documents and papers and clutter that will go. Ill-fitting shoes that I never liked. Superfluous kitchenware. And my beloved motorcycle. Perhaps not for forever. But I’ve taken what I needed from the Harley and I carry a scar and story to prove it. For now, I’m at peace with parting. There’s the hope of meeting again.

Earlier this spring, I was determined to erase everything. Job, lifestyle, relationships. Then shred the remains and throw them into a dustbin. I looked at houses in the rural environs of Western Pennsylvania where I spent my childhood. I dreamed of acreage and horses. I wanted nothing more than to be away, away from the city and the feints and deflections inherent in many of my daily interactions. I wanted, I think, to disappear into some chrysalis of my own making. And to re-emerge in some other place, as some other self.

But following through on creating my blank slate includes letting go of even the belief that such extreme measures were necessary for preservation, for authenticity.

I am moving, but the distance isn’t far. I don’t need it to be; what I want next is closer than I thought. As for what I’m letting go of, there may be empty spaces, but not a void. And in those spaces, the promise of things hoped for, but not yet seen.

P.S. I played Essie Carmichael in my high school’s production of You Can’t Take it With You. I’m sure I have a few playbills inside a drawer somewhere around here.

Feminism, History

The Year of Maybe

January 4, 2021 No Comments

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang, but a whimper

T.S. Eliot

These lines from “The Hollow Men” (first published 1925) are as fitting a sentiment to mark the end of the year 2020 as any other . Since 2020 often required more effort from me than I wanted to give and included many days where my primary emotion was exhaustion, I indulged in a small act of rebellion at its passing. That is to say, I ignored it. I refused to stay up until midnight, but went to bed early, and slept soundly.

It seemed to me that what was most needed was not forced gaiety, more stuff, or more obligations. I wanted my holidays to be a period of rest. I kept them small and quiet. My introvert self enjoyed the solitude; I wish more of the world could understand that being alone is not always lonely.

For many of us, 2020 was a year of great loss.

It is the reckoning of who and what I parted with, and what remains within my universe at the outset of 2021, that prompts me to write now.

I suppose that in hindsight, the signs that 2020 would be a dumpster fire were there from the start. I began the year with health issues that placed me on temporary medical leave from work. In February, my long-cherished hopes of building a family through adoption were dashed when I received a phone call with devastating news: the child’s relatives had inexplicably withdrawn their consent. The information came just hours after a video call in which I’d seen and spoken to the dark-haired little girl who I dreamed would someday be my daughter. (We later learned that a social worker had given the family false information, but by that point, it was too late to resurrect the international adoption process.)

March 2020 brought alarming harbingers of global pandemic. The vast majority of my colleagues within my department at a Fortune 500 retailer were furloughed; I did the job of three people on a reduced salary. My husband and I agreed to divorce.

Over the summer, America seemingly ruptured into its worst self. Violent, hateful, deadly. The COVID-19 pandemic did not meaningfully abate, and those sworn to protect the public were filmed choking the life from an unarmed man while bystanders pleaded with them to stop.

Then came autumn, and with it a surreal presidential election – and aftermath – where American democracy felt more fragile and vulnerable than at any point in my lifetime.

I could say more. I could write about the loss of my grandmother, who passed only days ago after succumbing to COVID. Had she lived until April, she would have celebrated her 100^th birthday.

But you read the headlines. You’ve heard the news reports. You know that the pandemic is not contained, despite vaccines at last making their way to the public. You recognize that our country is far from healed.

And yet. And yet, I cannot tally 2020 as a total loss. In many ways, it was a successful and even joyful year for me. I spent hours rambling through the beautiful hills and paddling the waters of rural Pennsylvania. I earned a certificate in game design; I mucked around with PlayStation and started to learn guitar. I stayed out until midnight on a hilltop looking at stars. I published articles in my professional realm which drew pleasing and humbling bits of attention. There were Zoom calls with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Giselle Fetterman, and women in my district running for state office. I attended a virtual cocktail party hosted by Lord and Lady Carnarvon of Highclere Castle (known to millions around the world as the setting of Downton Abbey).

I even baked homemade bread.

All told, it wasn’t all bad. Therein lies the rub.

2020 was a tremendously complicated year for me. I could start the day with my favorite coffee, read headlines that made me wish I hadn’t picked up the news, have Zoom meetings and conference calls and appointments with varying degrees of value, take my dog to the vet for the umpteenth time, wipe the kitchen countertops with disinfectant (again), and somehow end with a glass of wine and a chapter or two from a novel. Small wonder that the challenge of holding multiple and often conflicting feelings tested my endurance. It was a life of many realities converging together.

I had intended to experiment by making 2020 the Year of No. It often seemed the universe was saying no to me instead, and I had little choice in the matter.

But I did say no. No to an unsalvageable marriage. No to a job with a company whose values did not reflect my own. No to dating guys who were good-looking and intriguingly tattoed, but flaky. No to excusing others’ bad behavior.

I don’t know yet if 2021 will be the year of yes. I hesitate to say anything so absolute. But it may be the year of maybe.

History, Uncategorized

Beyond Binary: The Aftermath

November 15, 2020 No Comments

2020, the year of disruption. It took a global pandemic, the most bitter social and political fragmentation I’ve ever witnessed in American culture, and a painful end to my marriage, but I’m at last shaking free of the pursuit of something that just maybe, I should not have been chasing in the first place. I’ve given up looking for normal.

“Normal” is a loaded word these days. Some of us want to “get back to normal” or “adjust to the new normal.” Others believe that the establishment, in any form, is not to be trusted and that we’d be a lot better off crying foul on the status quo. In the days and weeks following the 2020 presidential election, I’ve been thinking a lot about normal. Is it what is comfortable? Familiar? Routine?

And if, but its very definition, normal is so unexceptional, why do we yearn for it so badly?

I’m beginning to think that in 2020, it wasn’t normality that was shattered. Instead, our habits and our complacency and our worldview were threatened at an existential level. There is no longer a common set of undisputed facts on which to base a shared understanding of reality. The world is tilted and off-center. We’re in a space that we can’t predict, and with a set of unknowns we can’t control.

And as a species, when the necessity to adapt forces itself upon us, we tend to resent it. Any behavioral economist will tell you that human beings are creatures of emotion, not logic. Just because we know better doesn’t mean we do better.

But we should. Maybe it’s not logical to expect “normal,” if normal means a return to what was before. How could it be? These are strange and often frightening times.

Much of life as we remember it is past. Perhaps, ultimately, we may find parts of it are not worth going back for. Yet things remain that are worth holding on to, and those have little to do with whether or not our local gym is open, or if we’re required to wear a mask, or if a curfew has gone into effect.

Human behavior is often highly contextual. But there is almost always a choice. And I will not give up on the big picture. I will not give up on decency, civility, or kindness. I will not give up on the expectation that my elected leaders will follow established precedents for conduct befitting their office. And I won’t give up on America, or on my fellow Americans, although I’ve felt more grief and anger and disappointment in these past 12 months than I believed possible.

For as Winston Churchill is alleged, but not proven, to have remarked, “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”

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