Ending or beginning

It’s been a crap year, on the national and global front, for reasons everyone knows.

But a great one, in most ways, for my family and me. We’ve gotten to know our little nearby granddaughter, 14 months old now, as a real person, full of energy and humor, anxious to learn, to do, to walk, talk, be herself, be paid attention to—all those things that make us human and unique.

The rest of the family is also doing well. Our three Scottish grandkids (who also have American passports) are blossoming, each in their own way. Lizzie and Graeme, their parents. Our daughter Katie & SIL Greg, who live a few blocks away. My brother’s daughters, Fae and Ada, are becoming adults, making their way in the world, thanks in part to great parenting by Paul and Marian. My sisters Rebecca and Sarah and their spouses, Bobby and CJ; my niece Emily, a rising academic star.

And Kim and I are settling in in Portland, learning its streets and roads, its ways and habits, flaws & foibles, inherent creativity and odd but endearing personality; making new friends, building a life here.

How odd, the juxtaposition.

We live in a world growing warmer by the minute, with dangerous and often deadly ramifications. Wars and endless flows of immigration dominate our era. Plant and animal species vanish. Authoritarians flourish. And yet, on a daily basis, here in out-of-the-way Portland, on the banks of the Willamette and the shores of the mighty Columbia, life flows along much as always.

Or so it seems.

I’ve long had ambivalent feelings about New Year’s Eve and Day. The frivolity and artificiality of acting like the ending of one year and the beginning of a new one makes much if any difference. The whole tawdry nonsense about resolutions that few intend to keep.

Many holidays have meaning for me, but not this one—a milestone without significance, except as a marker in a history book.

Even football, which once made this time of year seem sort of special, has for me lost much of its charm.

And yet, despite it all, and despite the onrushing potential horror of an election year that almost no one can welcome, I’m mostly happy, mostly content—as a thinking/feeling/mostly sentient individual, husband, father, grandfather, volunteer, part-time unpaid writer, and resident of a beautiful place and a beautiful planet.

And there’s much to be done in the new year.

Much to do, much that needs doing. I just ordered a new batch of political postcards, which need to be written and mailed in time to impact the race to fill the disgraced shoes of former Congressman George Santos in NYC.

So out with the old, in with the new. What else can we do?