Oh what to say about, do with this year, this 2020?

Pretend it never existed? Or just bid it a not-so-fond farewell?

It was an exhausting year, politically (can you believe President Trump’s impeachment was earlier this year? Seems like a million years ago), health-wise (coronavirus/COVID-19/vaccines/mask battles), work-wise (in Jan. 2020 did most people know what Zoom was? No – but today it’s a verb) and so on.

Coronavirus alone shifted the landscape of this year, affecting sports, entertainment, dining, retail, employement and just general interactions with others. It also helped make – at least in the US – a toxic political divide even more divisive (see: masks, wearing).

Personally, this was a coronavirus year, so I didn’t much do anything. No vacation, no celebrations.

This was the Year to Do Nothing as much as possible. As I’ve noted many times before, it’s easier for me – a non-social animal – to pull this off; I understand the others champing at the bit to get back out there. But don’t do it!

I read a bit more this year than in years past, a good thing. Two highlights:

• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. This non-fiction book equates black/white relations not as simple (?) racism, but as a caste institution, as in India or – more recently – the brief but brutal caste system in Nazi Germary in the 1930s and 1940s. Powerful
• The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton. A subtle yet disturbing novel about mother/daughter husband/wife relationships. I kept trying to guess where it was going. But didn’t see that happening. Still haunts me. Hamilton, with this book and A Map of the World, is becoming a favorite.

No music, TV show or movie really grabbed me this year. I’m still struggling with how to find music these days. The new (to me) stuff that I find and buy usually comes from music in movies or TV shows.

For me, a forgettable year.

Let’s do better 2021….