An idea meaning new, but also old

 I have this friend. He's been an easy target for chiding over the years because of his inability to multi-task. When he sends an email, he needs peace and quiet, no side conversations, no texting. When he goes out to eat (when people used to do that) carrying on a conversation would be nigh impossible if there was a television that he could see. And despite this well documented inability, he has the most varied list of hobbies of almost anyone I know. He writes and plays music, belongs to an off-roading club for which he maintains a capable vehicle, rides a motorcycle, hikes, and plays video games. Or, he did (referring to children this time, not the pandemic). I always felt like he would've been happier, felt less stretched, if he had found a way to focus on one thing. 

I wouldn't say I lost myself in my humble little Instagram project, but concentrating on that did make me lose sight of blogging. I guess I only have so many spoons for social media. Difficulty entraps me in ways I am not always comfortable. The idiosyncrasies of the service befuddle me, like how you can't post from a desktop, or how the posting window is more square than it is rectangular, or, more square than the window of a smart phone camera view. And beyond that, there are all the little peculiarities of using a camera phone for photography, the differences between portrait and photo and the powers of zoom. And the filters.  And I can't even say I figured any of that out. Since starting, I have mostly managed to post once a week, and the exercise of arrangement along with the process of writing has sapped energies I would've been spending elsewhere. The novel has stalled, but I think what has helped that was a heightened emotionality the year has afflicted on me. In the end, I realized I had no real power to point and laugh. I struggle, too.

When this all started, I had this idea, I called it the "19 in 20." I have long held the idea that pressure and pain and discomfort and discontent are powerful sources of art. There is much conversation about the "hunger" of the starving artist, how rich and refined their work is when they are struggling with very little, and then how that quality tapers off after they get some food in their belly, and space enough to sigh in relief. I connected these ideas and thought to compile work conducted by artists I knew during this time, as a way to document a very important period in the world's history. It was ambitious, but it also overlooked the very basic need of holding shields against the madness of confinement, isolation, and disorientation. I can't say that I did not write, but the writing I did do had little to do with embracing the mindfulness of the times. Poetry I committed to put a magnifier on sparks of feelings I had on given days, far more pronounced that I might have otherwise experienced. And the fiction was very much an escape. 

So I guess it is somewhat appropriate that I am back here with this at a time when the light in the tunnel is the brightest it's been in a good long while. Words like vaccine and president-elect now feature heavily in the news, along side record high hospitalizations and election fraud. The year is almost over. It makes me reflect on the power of symbols. After all, many artificial things change on the 1st, on documents in databases represented by ones and zeros, but there is no appreciable change in the nature of the sky or what trouble the horizon might bring, only our thinking about it. Because of those symbols. The reservoir of resolve is refurbished, as fresh memories of newest resolutions are synced and forged. A great many of us proactively challenge ourselves to find precise ways to be better. I've given it some thought recently, and come away mostly with questions. I have some foggy recollection of "being kinder to myself" and "being more responsible with my health" and I did go to the doctor more in the past year than I had in the 10 years previous, but I sincerely thought I was dying. It was similar to finding religion in the window seat of a crashing plane.

So maybe I could think of next year as a re do. I can't imagine that as a very novel thought. At least, I hope the tenor of '21 will be of coming again, trying again. At least, for those of us who can. There is something very awful about starting over, especially when it is preceded by so much erasing and deleting, so much baggage swept into refuse. But there are some incredible notes, too. Because the baggage doesn't really go away. More, it can be folded into something like wisdom to inform what can be done with the new clean slate. We're better already, so whatever we perform will have that benefit. We must only be resolved to try again.