2022-A Sea We Must Wade*

Starting with ART and ending with ART, just because.

Catrin Welz-Stein

Zdzisław Beksiński

2021 was somewhat of a blur. A year of waiting. A "Year of Almost" as author Chuck Wendig called it. Things almost got better. 

When the pandemic first started, it felt like we were all in it together. United by a common enemy. I thought this would be our Independence Day (the movie) moment. People sang and duetted each other from their balconies, visited the windows of nursing home residents to keep them company. Businesses, government agencies, and celebrities offered services, donated their time, money, and hope. 

We knitted and sewed masks for essential workers, helped our neighbors, and had birthday parades. 

I thought it might bring about big changes in the world.

And then the virus and its protective measures became political. 

Did you watch the months of school board election races throughout the country?? 

Ours was in all that coverage too. It was about mask-wearing, and fear of vaccine mandates, but mostly centered around the school using tax dollars to have a director of diversity, equality and inclusion, and teaching the history of oppression in the schools over fear that critical race theory is being taught inappropriately. It has all caused bitter division in our schools and community that we have still not resolved, nor recovered from.

It feels like the country is split in half. 

Half pretending the pandemic doesn’t exist, while the other half get vaccinated, wear masks, and try to do the right thing for the community at large. 

Half embracing a world where diverse contributions and perspectives are valued, the other half feeling defensive, blamed, and threatened by it. 

I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to think apolitically about these issues. I'm fighting despondency, reading about past eras of strife and discord, when the future seemed just as bleak, and somehow the world didn't end, civilization didn't fall. 

However, these days we have climate disaster on top of it all--and that is politicized too. 🙄

Bridging topics...watch Don't Look Up, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Ariana Grande and even Tyler Perry (and a host of other famous actors and actresses). It's a dark comedy about a planet-destroying comet headed toward earth,

a satire on climate change, populist governance, and the divisiveness aforementioned.

I read a lot of great books this year. You can go to goodreads to see "my year in books" for recommendations. 

A couple of my short stories were published in another anthology put out by my writing group using Spark Street Media publishing.  Desiderium means a longing for something lost. There are a lot of great stories in here by talented writers, most local to Columbus, Ohio--support your local authors!

Music I enjoyed this year: 

Wolf Alice-all their albums are great, but there is a more universal quality to their latest "Blue Weekend," as if they are letting the world be part of their tribe now. I'm not a music reviewer, so I'm just saying what I feel.

If you haven't listened to 80s New Wave for awhile, do it now and start with Howard Jones. His songs have uplifted me and reminded me that art, of all sorts, speaks to the times, yet is often timeless. (He's still making music and touring in the 2020s, btw.)

     

Niall Horan and Harry Styles- I'm lumping them together because, hey, they used to be together, and though they have a distinctive style from each other, they both have a nostalgic vibe that is also somehow fresh and modern. But I have to say, Harry Styles has it all, all the time.

                       

Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eillish because they are way cool, and because my 13-year old is obsessed, so I have no choice anyway. 

                     

I wish everyone a year of striving to reach goals, fulfillment of family, and self, and ART--do some reading, download an album, go to a museum, create something at home.

See? I'm ending the year on a good note!

*Title comes from Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb"*