Boxing With Babushkas

“Owen! Noa! Theoooooo! Let’s go. FAST! C’mon. We are in a hurry. FASTER. PLEASE.”

These words, in various sequences, are tersely snapped so often they’ve hit semantic satiation-status. (At least that’s what I’ve surmised by the frequency at which they temporarily lose all meaning for the listeners.) But on this particular day, while my two boys grumbled yet dutifully obliged, my daughter stood stock-still, looked me straight in the eyes, and said with cavalier, crone-like confidence: “Fast is NOT my favorite speed. Try slow. Slow is my favorite.” 

This. This is the energy I’m bringing into 2024. 91-year-old woman energy. That intoxicating IDGAF-spirit that only emerges from truly not giving any. To be unapologetically yourself. To unflinchingly speak truth to power. To move through the world with certainty and conviction. To let them. And somehow, my 4-year-old daughter tapped in 87 years early, which I find equal parts hilarious, maddening, and inspiring – and earnestly want to channel in my own life. So naturally, I shared this revelation with two trusted confidants: could we unleash our inner Margarets,* Mamies, and Esthers today? One responded: “[son] knocked a chair over and hit an 80+ woman, who whipped around and exclaimed ‘And how the hell are you?’ Life goals.” The other replied: “Help me do that!!!” then recommended I make this my Boxing Day topic.

So here we are dear friends, we’ve made it to Boxing Day #19 (which has formally morphed into a state-of-mind, not a day, based on the scrubbed send-date data). And whether you’ve been a ride or die since “high fives in ‘05” or landed here after googling “champagne chalet” and mistakenly slipped into this vortex of formulaic fortune cookie wisdom and wordplay, I’m happy you’re here. For real. Considering we’re firmly in that lawless, cheese-fueled state of nothingness between Christmas and New Year where time exists only in mimosa units, I’d recommend you pour yourself a flute of time and stay. Slow down and savor, even. Become the couch. 

Slow is not something I’m great at. Those who know me well or have had the pleasure of traveling with my “arrive at the airport with just enough time to walk on the flight”-archetype will appreciate the understatement. Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train reaches speeds of 198mph. It earns every accolade thrust upon it and is truly an exhilarating way to travel. Shortly after leaving Tokyo Station, you start whizzing past the bucolic Japanese countryside and before you know it, almost impossibly soon, you’re at your destination. What you missed in between? No time to know – you’re onto the next city, whizz. Next adventure, whizz. Next challenge, whizz. I lead a Shinkansen life – complete with a team of people managing my schedule and optimizing my routes to support it. Exhilarating and accolade-filled? Sure. Also, almost impossibly soon, Owen is 10. Whizz! We are conditioned to do more and get more and have more and be more. To hustle. To grind. Grit and tenacity were tattooed on my brain in middle school as the definitive markers of strong character and success. And at a time in my life when demand for my attention comes at an all-time premium, slow feels like a luxury I can’t afford. The timer never stops running, right? All you will regret is not reaching harder for the things you actually wanted while they were still in front of you, right? But what passes by as I’m hurling toward my next stop at 198mph?

I know I will miss these caricatured versions of the growing faces in front of me. I’ll miss the lasts as much as the firsts: the last bedtime story, the last bubble bath, the last mispronunciation (RIP leggybugs, marshpillows, hanitizer, and “hold you”). “Mommy” certainly is not long for this home’s nomenclature. They too are hurling at Shinkansen-speed toward their destinations, with stops at each next stage of their own becomings, leaving outlines of their smaller versions behind at each station. I was reminded by a friend during a particularly hard week that in 20 years, I’d give anything to be this age again, exactly this healthy, and airdrop into my life just as it is today. To savor the senses – the sights, smells, sounds, touches – that will all fade with time no matter how tightly I grasp. A core sentiment of Japanese culture is mono no aware. Literally “the pathos of things,” it describes the bittersweet appreciation that everything is temporary as it’s the ephemera itself that makes life so infinitely precious. (Irony not lost that the pioneers of the world’s fastest train also pinpointed the poignant emotion of transience, the beautiful sadness in the passing of lives and objects.) Whether experienced on a figurative park bench or whizzing by at 198mph, seasons in life are not to be mourned, but cherished in their impermanence. My friend reminded me this too shall pass, whether I want it to or not, then urged me to “go do more main character shit before it’s too late.” And no one does main character shit like old women.

Culturally, crones get a bad rap. The dictionary’s first entry greets you with pleasantries like “an ugly, evil-looking old woman,” “a sinister, cantankerous witch” or my personal fave and winner of most relatable: “the withered hag.” This is no surprise considering its etymology – crone comes from the early 13c. Anglo-French carione, meaning "dead, putrefying animal corpse.” [i.e. once aged out of fertility and child-rearing, women become gross, useless carcasses. Cool, cool. Long live the patriarchy!] But the second entry starts feeling (less cynically) familiar to my lived experience: “an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman.” “An old woman of great power and strength whose life wisdom comes from both her age and the many things she’s lived through.” There we go – the crone is the matriarch. The babushka. The granny Orca. Moana’s tūtū Tala. The mythologically revered and formidable bearer of ancient wisdom and supernatural vision, ruler not only of regeneration but of the underworld because she has no fear of death – which means, of course, she fears nothing. Native American mythology, including my own Potowatomi tribe, is filled with tales of an ancestor called Spider Grandmother, who weaves the web of creation from which all other living things emerge. She symbolizes the interconnectedness between all things, imperceptible strength and resourcefulness, and the power of mind-body-soul balance (fun fact: dreamcatchers are crafted in her honor). Numerous other myths around the world depict spinning and weaving goddesses like Lauma, a mythological Latvian doula who spins the cloth of life. Like old women, spiders can inspire awe and fear disproportionate to their size. 

To be human is to confuse a satisfying story with a meaningful one, so while society collectively converges around the cultural blight of withered hags running amok and the present danger of glabellar lines to fixed foreheads, I’ve become fixated on channeling my inner crone – the badass old lady who dwells within me, molded by matriarchs, whom I hope to someday fully become, crow's feet and all. In a society that fetishizes youth, I choose fearing nothing over staying forever 21. To be both fierce and compassionate. To bring the strength and discernment to know what must end for something new to begin. To try slow: less doing, more being (it is Noa’s favorite, after all). And to welcome the innate uncertainty of life, not by lamenting impermanence, but by basking in the beauty of change itself. 

There is beauty in life and, so long as we live, there is beauty in death. The cherry blossom blooms intensely, yet only for one week each year. As the flowers die and petals drop, blossoms blanket the ground like soft, pink snow. It’s the profound appreciation of their transience that draws crowds, standing in awe of their delicate nature, capturing their utmost beauty between the precipice of life and death. To be truly at peace under the cherry blossoms is to know mono no aware. We must embrace change as it rises with the sun and whizzes with the Shinkansen because we too are like the cherry blossoms – beautiful not despite, but because of our impermanence. This year more than any other, I’ve learned that while you can’t control the waves, you can track the tides and grab a surfboard.  

I’ll leave you with the babushkas of Chernobyl – a resilient, spirited group of elderly women who defiantly returned to their ancestral homes after the disaster, and who are now outliving their compatriots who stayed behind in the "safe" and "non-toxic" cities. In her TedTalk, Holly Morris explains “It’s not that the women haven’t suffered enormously, or that nuclear contamination isn’t bad (they have and it is), but the babushkas’ unlikely survival raises fascinating questions about the palliative powers of home and the tonic of living a self-determined life.” Tl;dr: these tough old crones are thriving because they’re happy. And they’re happy because they do exactly what they want. That is the level of IDGAF-spirit I aspire to. I can’t help but reflect on the strong women who shaped me – fierce, loving, loyal, force-of-nature-type women – who are so clearly reflected in the company I keep today. Descendants of our Spider Grandmother. They remind me to breathe and to “try slow.” That I haven’t met all of me yet. That there is so much more life left to live. And when I tap into my own inner crone, when I ask myself what my spider grandmother would do, that radiant, ancient being rises, catches me with her fearless gaze, and weaves the same powerful message every time: live.

--

*Dedicated to the legacy of Margaret Ann Hilley, who "loved fiercely and without reservation, was stubborn as hell," and shaped some of my very favorite people on the planet. And who, by the interconnectedness between all things, played a significant part in who I am today and who I will become. Thank you, Nana.

Boxing Day JOMO

I was recently driving Noa to preschool when she asked: “Mama, do we live in Washington?” I replied that yes, we do live in Washington. Momentary pause. “Why do we live in Washington?” This is my third go at three – I should’ve seen it coming. “Well,” I reply-sighed, mentally stockpiling patience for the next 11 rounds, “because that’s where daddy and I choose to live.” The silence lasted only a beat before she confidently replied: “Well I choose ice cream.” Stunned, I simply nodded to both affirm her choice and declare defeat. We rode silently the rest of the way. May we all bring Noa’s energy into 2023. 

This year, a slew of competing priorities piled up and deferred my annual reflection ritual. (For newcomers, I do this thing every year where I forgo sending gifts and instead send all of my opinions. Welcome!) Sure, distractions are at an all-time high: the champagne chalet has been discovered, infiltrated, and colonized. I currently have a lapdog in the form of a 6-year-old sprawled across my legs, his body buzzing with frenetic youth. My own pocket vibrates, my wrist illuminates, my coffee mug connects to bluetooth, my headphones abruptly decrescendo, uncannily sensing that I may want to hear something in the background (I don’t), and my laptop protests low power faster than it did in the past, which is particularly relatable. 

Yet even beyond discarding distractions, at a time in my life when demand for my attention is at a premium, opportunities abound, and focus is a luxury, I’ve had to get better at saying no to good things. This is hard. And it goes directly against my elder-millennial, people-pleasing, hustle-culture camarilla. But what I’ve learned through well-intentioned multitasking-fails is that focus is not saying yes to the thing most worthy of attention, but instead saying no to the hundred other things, good ideas, and compelling opportunities that exist in resounding chorus. Akin to picking my battles, it’s picking what I protect – shunning unnecessary over-exertion, unshackling myself from the burden of “should,” strategically underperforming, selecting carefully. There’s Noa-level intentionality in saying no; it’s powerful precisely because it preserves the opportunity to say yes.

Now, I recognize that intentionality, discernment, and saying no are clearly not novel ideas this season. They’ve been thoughtfully chewed on and digested by the zeitgeist with a fervor usually reserved only for Timothée Chalamet’s red-carpet looks and our collective desire to suck the gingerbread-spice marrow out of every brittle winter day. Whether we metaphorize trees, mysticize retrograde’s Saturnian energy, or idolize Joan Didion, we intrinsically understand winter’s familiar cycle of death and renewal. Of intentionally letting go of things that don’t serve our goals like a tree drops its leaves – not to ignore or offend the past, but to wholeheartedly embrace the present. To prioritize our needs in the particular season we’re in. To be in a perpetual state of becoming, growth, and evolvement. 

So it’s a strong yes to more no. Let’s pour into ourselves! Put up boundaries! Practice JOMO with wild, guilt-free abandon! Because in Joan’s words, “to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – therein lies the great, the singular power of self-respect.” And while I’m a devout disciple, I do sometimes find myself in conflict with my own job title. Community is another nebulous buzzword of our time. On one hand, community has become inextricably linked to our performative, FOMO-laden feeds and FYPs (social media isn’t community, AMA). On the other, community is scientifically proven time and time and time and time and time again to be the investment most worth our time. I recently told my husband that I haven’t stopped being social, it’s just hibernating. But when does hibernation become isolation? We casually juxtapose the barrage of content telling us we’re lonelier than ever with all the rah-rah boss-bitch energy around avoiding humans, banishing phone calls, and cutting off contact #BecauseBoundaries. Staying in as a “radical act of self-care” is as radical today as living, laughing, loving all things vanlife. In this climate, has my own delirious obsession with JOMO become a convenient excuse to avoid the intimacy required for community-building? And is it ironic that I spend my workday earnestly espousing the power of community, only to guiltlessly relish my screen-free evenings alone?

Maybe. But also, the word community needs to have a heart-to-heart with Inigo Montoya. Community is not an audience. You, for example, are not part of my “Boxing Day Community.” (Victims, yes. Especially if you’ve made it this far. But community? No.) Audiences are spoken to, communities speak to one another. Audiences consume, communities contribute. Communities, by their very nature, go against existing social structure; they enrich as they get smaller, more niche, more intimate, more vulnerable, more human. The Latin noun Communitas characterizes a liminal moment – communities form when people move from an area of commonality into an exclusive group because of an experience they share together. Community not only requires boundaries to thrive, it does not exist without them. And through this lens, preserving your yeses by saying no, being discerning in what you choose, what you protect, what you nurture, and what you let go of in the process is as critical for community as Ticketmaster's demise is for Swifties. It’s not a nice-to-have, it’s essential. 

Seasons, too, are liminal. And it is precisely in their dissolution of order, their momentary unknown, their fluid, temporal nature that make the communities they root so rare, so precious, so worth protecting. 

So at this moment – when the characterization of connection has become performative, when there’s limitless information but with the limited context of 30-second snippets, when yet another technology hype-cycle threatens to “disrupt everything” with artificial approximations of human expression – this moment, right now, is a great time to prioritize our separate peace. To have our private reconciliations. To keep our circles nourished and vibrant, and small if we must. To consciously identify the border between what’s real and what’s perceived, what’s lived experience and what’s simulation. To assign unanswered texts their proper weight, calling ourselves back into the space of being more human than machine: Less scheduled, more present. Less technical, more messy. Because, to paraphrase the coiner of JOMO, being in control of what moves us, what we’re obligated by, and what attachments we have to fleeting experiences is not an authority we should willingly concede to the arbitrary whims of apps on our phone.

My hope for all of us in 2023 is that we radiate the calm peace of satisfaction wherever we are. To have the discernment to prioritize the season we’re in. To trade our fear for joy. And to not miss our lives by chasing the belief that there is some moment more worth our presence than the one we’re in right now. 

All this to say you’re receiving this on the 31st because I chose not to prioritize it until today. 

Narrator: And Noa, unflappable, chose ice cream. 

Happy 2023

Boxing Day Blah’g

Greetings from the champagne chalet. I’ve once again found myself tucked away in a “quiet” corner of my home, attempting to condense an approximately 837-day-year’s worth of disparate musings into a relatively cohesive email. Everything truly is relative these days.

It’s funny because just as you may be considering dropping off at this point, I similarly considered dropping off this year. Last year’s round 15 marked the Championship Distance, so I figured I could send Theo’s school photo, a video of Noa painting our Peloton with DryDex Spackle (#NotAnAd), a downloadable print of this classic, and call it good. Sure, rituals and traditions hold importance, blah. And okay, arguably even more so during times of historic uncertainty, blah, blah. But something about reflecting on this year, in particular, feels especially… blah. There’s a word for this. It’s ennui – a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction.* And though this did not top Merriam Webster’s Word Of The Year list, the top 5 (vaccine, insurrection, perseverance, woke, nomad) most definitely trigger my ennui on various dimensions. So for those who felt a chronic sense of blah in 2021, who embraced ennui, know that you weren’t alone. This one’s dedicated to you. (Us, really.)

Like many, I’ve found myself reminiscing on the last 22-months – a collective, traumatic chapter that has somehow simultaneously lasted both an instant and a lifetime – trying to recall the energy of the early foreboding days and perhaps still attempting to reconcile the dissonance. I always re-read my last few missives before starting anew, and woof, last year’s was a trip I was not prepared to revisit. The raw uncertainty, the delight of pandemic jokes before they went stale, the hope. And while no one could unequivocally declare 2021 better than 2020 (within its very first weeks, 2021 effectively told 2020 to hold. my. beer.), it was at least different. A variant, so to speak. And like any year, it had both highs and lows.

Unfortunately, in 2021, the uncertain times became certain: if you didn’t get vaccinated, you more likely got Covid, to varying degrees of severity. The unprecedented became precedented: the US lost more lives to Covid in 2021 than 2020. And the alarming became blasé: I just casually texted a friend “how’s your massive mental meltdown going?” which is so normal now, I’m surprised it wasn’t auto-populated. The world experienced record-breaking natural disasters, from an earthquake in Haiti killing 2248 to the worst forest fires in modern history in Russia. We lost pioneers and icons: bell hooks, Virgil Abloh, Joan Didion, Jessica Walter, Norm MacDonald, Daft Punk. We even (at times) lost our bones and when we didn’t, our afternoon walks became the last thing tethering us to reality, yet our only way of escaping it. We returned to the office, only to sit in comically empty rooms, cursing the hellish loop that is joining zoom from a dusty teleconference system. 

And yet, progress. Vaccines that protect against serious illness and death are taking ever greater hold in the U.S. and finally making their way to the world’s most vulnerable regions. We hugged loved ones and ever-so-cautiously reboarded airplanes. We explored more than ever from touching the sun to helicoptering around Mars to discovering ocean creatures straight out of sci-fi. Our love for the outdoors ignited. Cities did not die. Britney is free. And on the theme of freedom, Facebook and Instagram went down, giving us a brief, yet euphoric taste of how wonderful life might be if we could focus on true fulfillment, not fictional FOMO. Creative and compassionate humanity shined. We turned internet spats into songs and we confirmed that we are not cats, despite the compelling evidence otherwise. 

Overall, 2021 reinforced the importance of being nimble; to take advantage of unexpected opportunities arising from adversity. To capture the rare and fleeting moments of levity. And to enthusiastically discard antiquated relics, routines, and rituals (see: monuments, commutes, handshakes), all of which, even at peak-popularity, never served our collective best interests. See? Hope is not completely lost. Even the reemergence of the 17-year cicadas reminded us that the natural order of things can prevail in even the most turbulent of times. 

So why the collective blah? Why the ever ennui’ng* ennui? Well, chugging along on a track designed by MC Escher himself, we’ve been riding a roller coaster of emotional ups and downs at breakneck speed, trapped in what feels like an everlasting loop, one day indistinguishable from the next. Some experts labeled it languishing, or the sense of stagnation, aimlessness, and emptiness. Others believe it’s due to a deprivation of freedom and control, and point out the lengths we’re going to reclaim it (insert revenge bedtime procrastination). And while I relate to both of those as symptoms, I sense that our pandemic-blahs are caused by the tension of living in perpetual “unresolve.” Because let’s be honest, as humans, we are terrible at embracing paradoxes. We crave the binary. We desperately desire denouement, even if it’s not the dream outcome. It’s why we clap on 2 and 4, not 1 and 3. It’s why we feel physical satisfaction and relaxation when the tension of a diminished chord progression resolves, bringing the journey to an end. 

Humans have an almost unstoppable propensity for closure and there’s something intoxicating about the act of resolution in itself. But fundamentally, avoiding dissonance may be more of a compulsion than a strategy. In my line of work, it’s disheartening to recognize that Community, a powerful force for solving our most intractable problems, can be a powerful incubator and problem-accelerant, too. When a system appears to be malfunctioning, indifferent, reckless, or corrupt, people are likely to come together and respond, for better or worse (see January 6th). Spoiler: our COVID-19 journey is not going to resolve anytime soon. Surges will happen, variants will rise, mitigation strategies will be in a constant state of evolution, dissonance will dwell. Because no one, literally no one, has the answers (to anything, really). Rather than remain paralyzed with doubt and fear over each new uncertainty, anxious over the unknown, tense at every bit of news, and contemptuous of fellow humans who hold a dramatically different sense of acceptable risk, what if we set boundaries so that we don’t have to exhaust ourselves with stress over every curve ball?

In reality, humans are dual and contradictory by nature – beautiful and broken; confident and humble; happy and hurting, sweet and sour, lost and found. These clichés feel familiar because they’re how we’re built. So perhaps if we reflect on the world in our own opposites and learn to master the art of paradox, we’ll begin to find balance in dissonance. Answers in opposites. Focus in fragmentation. Pick one, DryDex Spackle over a “Live, Laugh, Love” sign (#StillNotAnAd), and slap it up as the 2022 mantra, because what we’re self-treating as a temporary detour is our real life. And finally, just like any other version of burnout, the solution is not more self-care; the solution is boundaries. We must reclaim our time, clear the constant distractions, and grant ourselves the freedom to focus. We will find solace in experiences that capture our full attention. Paradoxically, we can be generous toward others while staying true to ourselves and setting standards. Small circle, private life, happy heart, focused mind.

So with all of this said, and deeply inspired by the brilliant Jamie Varon, I’ll close with this. Coming out of this blah-bound season, I really don’t care if you live your “best” life. I hope you live your freest life. Your most unburdened life. Your lightest life. I hope your life is a patchwork of lessons and trials and joys and mistakes and growth and evolution and expansion. I hope you truly know that rejection, failure, disappointment means you care, you’re trying, you’re out there in life, alive to it. I hope your life feels beautiful to you more than it looks beautiful to everyone else. I hope your life is an ongoing evolution, a constant becoming. Mostly, I hope you take the path that is meant for you, not the one expected of you from yourself, from others, from weighty ambition or dogma. And I hope that in 2022, you leave empty space in your life for the unknown, the magic, the adventures, the surprises, the unexpected, the unresolved. Because as ennui’ng as it is, the ambiguity is where the life is. 
xo, Laura

*You won’t be surprised to find out that the French loanword ennui comes from the very same Late Latin word that gave us annoy — inodiare (to make loathsome) – especially considering that you can remember how to pronounce ennui by saying annoy while plugging your nose. 



Writing, Podcasts & Other 2021 Inspiration

Writing 
I Miss It All 
On Female Rage
Nuclear Cats
The Kitchen Is Closed 
Call Me A Traitor
The Phonecall Is Back 
Aftermath
I’m your short afternoon walk and you’re putting way too much pressure on me
Contraindications
To Protect Me From America, My Parents Changed My Name Without Telling Me
The Gradual Extinction of Softness
Love as the Practice of Freedom

Podcast Episode/Series 
Octomom (episode)
The Unlikely Pioneer Behind mRNA Vaccines (episode)
A Mother And Daughter At The End (episode)
The Dropout (series) 
The Happiness Lab (series) 
One Year: 1977 (series) 
9/12 (series) 

Newsletters
Yung Pueblo
James Clear 

TV/Docs
The White Lotus 
Bo Burnham: Inside 
My Octopus Teacher 
Succession
WeWork: Making & Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn

Art 
Celeste Barber
Yung Pueblo 
Rupi Kaur (watch her Amazon Prime special) 
i do not want to have you 
to fill the empty parts of me 
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city 
and then 
i want to have you
cause the two of us 
could set it on fire
    -rupi kaur 

Boxing Alone, Together.

It’s been a year. And I’m writing this from a closet.

...Which I’ve dubbed “Mama’s writing nook” and supplied with essential writing accouterment including, but not limited to, expensive noise-canceling headphones, a Pendleton blanket, and a bottle of moderately priced champagne. And it’s quiet. Which is a word so seldom used to describe my life that stumbling upon it felt like finding a $100 bill in an empty parking lot – confusion, guilt, thrill, all wrapped into one intoxicating deliverance. 

If you’re confused about why you’ve been figuratively thrown into my cozy champagne chalet, may I remind you that it’s Boxing Day, an annual tradition where I forgo sending gifts and instead send you all of my opinions? Welcome! Like everything else in 2020, rest assured that this will be especially light and whimsical... 

In this year of 396 years, we’ve had a front-row seat in watching the unprecedented become precedented. In These Uncertain Times, what we all know for certain is that if we hear that phrase from a corporate brand trying to sell us an emotionally manipulated silver bullet just one more time... or zoom-fatigue, or “you’re on mute,” or any other insta-cliched neologisms, we will all (in this together) completely snap. And I’ll admit, in Times Like These, I’m tempted to whip something up for you that’s equal parts pithy and trite, proclaim something like “Sweatpants Forever!” and re-emerge upbeat and seemingly unscathed from the feces-lined waterslide 2020 sent us down blindfolded. It feels both logical and humane to wish for a momentary pause from the ceaseless conflict because between a particularly talented showman (whose latest act is feigning fury over a “stolen election” to subsidize his personal debt) and an entire subculture who has made denying science a culture war, an incredible amount of energy has been invested in division this year. A pause does sound nice. And yet, if anything has been brightly illuminated, it is my own unmistakable privilege to be able to stop paying attention when things get uncomfortable. (Nothing says you aren’t being impacted by something more than your ability to ignore it.) Putting a positive spin on things, while earnest, also serves to gaslight the raw pain and suffering this year has surfaced. So here we are. Many of us have spent the past nine months hoping, wishing, lusting for “normal.” Many of us have spent the past four years longing for a “normal” president. In 2021, we may get both of those wishes. But what will normal look like? And more importantly, what should it look like?

As for my current normal, Owen, our 1st grader, hasn’t been in a classroom since early March. He’s coping as well as imagined, Minecraft has unironically played a large role in teaching him how to read, and his ability to navigate any form of digital tech is uncanny. He’s isolated for most of the day, sitting at a desk in our basement from 9am-3pm, while I, behind a nearby door, virtually bounce from meeting to meeting, muting myself when his teacher attempts to facilitate virtual PE to what sounds like a JockJams megamix. I try to remember that he’s six and that focusing in front of a screen is challenging at any age. But most days my patience is paper-thin when I find that he’s sharpened all of his pencils to nubs, drawn on his desk, or made an executive decision to put himself on mute, turn off his video, and play with his legos. The current normal for 48% of all US students is full-time virtual instruction (another 18% are hybrid), and these rates are higher among poor students and students of color. Our school district distributed personal iPads and hotspots for every student. Private schools are holding classes under heated tents on sprawling campuses. Low-income students are sitting outside McDonald’s to get internet access. Normal sure can hit differently. Paraphrasing from Dr. Jal Mehta’s NYT opinion piece Make Schools More Human, we are realizing what we should have known all along: relationships are critical for learning. Pandemic or not, students’ interests need to be stimulated and their selves need to be recognized. The same is true for teachers. Teachers need to feel physically safe, they need support, they need their work to be recognized and honored, and they need working conditions that make it possible for them to succeed. All of this is doubly true in high-poverty communities, where, in the name of urgency, we’ve moved the furthest from taking a human approach to both students and teachers. This is not the normal we should return to. 

Over 330,000 Americans have died from a disease that has spread through the fissures in our communities, revealing the inequalities that were already rampant and built (intentionally) into the structure of our society. The US economy has 10 million fewer jobs than it did in February – almost all low-income service jobs – leaving the most vulnerable unemployed as the richest among us continue to watch their profits soar. This is not the normal we should return to.

And remember the collective cringe we all shared for BBC dad in 2017? This is also not the normal we should return to. For good and bad, 2020 has humanized us all. It has stomped its feet and demanded empathy and realness, even amidst the void of anything remotely resembling it from our president. We’ve collectively revealed our truest joys, our deepest pain, our darkest fears, our weakest points. We’ve seen the best and the worst of humanity and exposed that the privilege of apathy is the loudest silence. We’ve lifted the veil on cold, calculated, professionalism by divulging our cluttered basements, questionable art choices, toy-infested living rooms, unmade beds, dirty kitchens, curious pets, and exuberant children, fleshing out the fullness of our lives to those who previously only saw one dimension. And it makes you wonder: why were we trying so hard to hide all of this humanness before? What good did that do anyone? It’s impossible to miss the rambunctious interruptions we’ve come to know and love, but look carefully on your next virtual meeting and you’ll likely spot a silent mouthed “thank you” to an off-screen someone who is dropping off a coffee, snack, or lunch plate. These quieter moments of real-life and gratitude are reminders that, though this is impossibly difficult, it is still full of small gestures of love and light.

On the topic of light, December 21st marked the winter solstice when days get longer in the northern hemisphere – the oldest celebration in human history, because at the moment we’re farthest from the sun, it draws us closer once again. On our daily walks, Noa squeals with glee at the Christmas lights and points at every un-lit strand, indignantly demanding “ON! ON!,” almost as if she understands that as dim as it’s been, we have to celebrate whatever light we can find and share it with others.

So while it would be cathartic to close out this terrible year by hitting send on a scathing hot take on precisely how and where 2020 can go f*** itself, I’m instead here to confront the underlying tension many of us are experiencing this holiday season. The exhausted desire for rest and normalcy, but the visceral reminder that when we stress-tested our societal foundation, large sections had gaping holes. What was normal for many is not safe to return to. (In many cases, it wasn’t safe to begin with.) So my message to you is this – let’s resist the rallying cries to forget all things 2020. Let’s instead recognize it as a year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw, that it forced us to grow. Let’s peel off the sticky film that coated every experience, good and bad, and use it as our lens through which we change our collective normal. Because the truth is, what happens next is up to all of us. How willing we are to fight, how well we learned from what’s happened, and how much we are able to care about one another. We have a lot to grieve from 2020 and much to repair, but the glimmers of goodness remain in their places. John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsberg feel near because we hold the light of those we lost inside us. Let’s chase after it with Noa’s fierce urgency. ON! ON! Let’s illuminate the paths forward as we stumble along in this, our collective endeavor toward our new normal.

Sweatpants Forever!