We'll Drink a Cup of Kindness Yet...

We’ll Drink a Cup of Kindness Yet..
    I started the year by baking some chocolate chip cookies for the mail carrier, something I’ve never done before. It seemed like a small gesture that might make someone happy. When I put the cookies in my metal mailbox this morning, it was about three degrees above zero, so I’m hoping they won’t be a frozen pile of baked cookie dough when she finds them a few hours from now.
   Trying something new and different, even in small ways, seems like a good way to start a new year. Small steps seem especially important this year as we leave behind a year that stressed and strained us. Enduring the second year of a pandemic was wearing on all us –those in the medical field, working in schools, parenting kids in school, running small businesses, caregiving, operating local restaurants, and just getting through our day to day lives in a world that seemed crazy, complicated and confusing. Just before the new year started, I got a text from a friend saying that she was having trouble wishing people a “Happy New Year” this year as “it’s a time of such disquiet and uncertainty.” I see her point.
   So, before we go forward into the new year, happy or not, we can try and figure out what good can we draw out of 2021. I asked a few friends and relatives what they learned in the last year, thinking that question could draw out positive results. The responses varied. Some answers went right to the divided politics of our country that seeped into everything from professional football to vaccination recommendations. One friend was surprised to learn how disappointed she was that “good friends and good people were unwilling to wear a simple mask.” For her, the debate over masks was a sign of further disappointment in people who were “willing to follow a leader with no moral code.” Pointing to the severe division in our country, another friend continues to try to make a learning experience out of it. “I’m trying to learn to not let this awful time make me judgmental,” my friend Anne wrote to me. She explained that she’s attempting to look for the “how and why” to understand people’s thinking. “I cannot let politics and people turn me into a divisive, angry, spiteful wretch,” she added. Because Anne is the exact opposite of a spiteful wretch, it was telling that this is a real concern for her; that the politics of our time will turn us into judgmental oppositionists.
   Some of the lessons learned were more specific. My sister Ann learned how to download audiobooks and podcasts, a game changer for her. She also learned how to make a new cocktail, a Moscow Mule, another item on her to-do list for 2021. I wrote back to her requesting that a Cosmo be the cocktail she learns to make for 2022. Shortly after I sent that message, my daughter Molly sent Ann and me a photo of a “boxtail” of Cosmos that she had just received as a gift. “No need to learn this one,” she captioned her photo. An interesting bit of synchronicity to start of the new year.
Pam, a St. Johnsbury friend, learned how to navigate the on-line grocery shopping and curbside pick up system, as well as telemedicine appointments, which have both now become routine. Pam, and the rest of us, adjusted to Zoom meetings for appointments, family check-ins and all kinds of meetings. She said she learned to truly appreciate Zoom after being able to host a Zoom Celebration of Life for her husband Henry that allowed dear friends and family from Massachusetts, as well as local St. J friends, to gather easily to pay tribute to Henry and offer a toast together in his honor.
    A year that included a good deal of isolating and quarantining allowed for some philosophical reflection and introspection. My friend Anne (who will never be a wretch) found herself embracing her introverted side. “Who knew I even had one?” she wrote. I did not know that about her. It was a surprising lesson for me. Because she injured her shoulder in a fall in March, Anne also said she learned the truth about the it-takes-a-village concept as she relied on her neighbors along her Merry Island Road for all kinds of help, including twice daily walks for her pup Callie. Difficulties and challenges also led my friend Pam to rely on friends and ask for help, a new experience for her, as she often has been the one providing the help. She said the lesson she learned is that “friends and family are the true meaning of life.”
   Another friend, Martha, did some studying and reflecting on forgiveness. She listened to podcasts, and learned about how to ask for forgiveness, even if you aren’t sure what offense you made, but know a rift has been created that needs to be mended. It’s probably a podcast we should all listen to.
   Two friends, on different coasts, explained that 2021 taught them a bit about themselves. My friend Molly in California took the pandemic year to make significant changes and learned she could prioritize herself over her work. “I put myself first,” she wrote. Molly has worked from home for years now and explained that instead of beginning her day by settling in to work she now first exercises, gets some fresh air, has breakfast and enjoys “a delish cup of Barry’s Irish tea.” It seems her body and soul have been changed by this lesson. On this coast, in the NEK, my friend Hilary retired in 2021, and said she learned the value of her own worth. After having her identity closely tied to her work life, and struggled a bit to find her way after no longer working, she said the past year as taught her the value of who she is, not connected to a job, but simply as herself.
   So many good lessons from a year that challenged us and changed us. We are inevitably more resilient as we begin a new year a look ahead to what we can pull out of 2022. Now that collectively we’ve mastered on-line meal-ordering and making Moscow Mules, let’s look ahead to a new year of knowing our worth, seeking forgiveness, and maybe a Cosmo or two. Cheers!