This year wasn’t a devastation to me. I didn’t lose my job. I didn’t get sick, nor did I lose anyone I love to Covid. The losses I suffered were different, smaller–my favorite restaurant, trips to Lake Michigan, a chance to see my in-laws in Norway, my dog of 15 years (very sad but very normal and expected). My daughter went through an excruciating ACL reconstruction surgery for the second damn time and afterwards I helped her purge her room of all things soccer (posters, cleats, jerseys, shin guards–enough stuff to fill two garbage bags) when she decided to retire from her beloved sport. I watched her spend her senior year in virtual isolation, only setting foot in her high school once to take the SAT, hardly seeing friends and certainly not doing all the things one would expect during their last year of high school.
This year expectations lived above board. They were there, in plain view–that I would watch my daughter play her final flute recital, that I could cheer on my son at his cross-country meets, that we could rent an airbnb on the beach in Michigan, that we would visit Chicago, that we would have friends over for dinner, and that I would (of course) write and publish some more poems. All knocked down like trees in the straightline wind of the Covid virus. Not a one left standing, save for walking and hiking. We still did that.
I recently discovered a poet that I really love. After watching a YouTube video of them* reading a poem, I looked them up. It appears as though I may be one of the last in the English-speaking world to discover them, since they’ve won nearly every British accolade there is to win. I’ve been watching lots of their videos, but this one resonates especially. And it seems like the mantra I need as I move forward into 2021:
(They have recently changed their name to Kae and use they/them pronouns.)
Hold your own, friends. See you in 2021.