Easing into the New Year

Are you hanging in there? I feel like we’re heading into junior year of the pandemic and all my teenage anxieties are flooding back. Except this time around I’m not stressed about applying for college or breaking up with my lame boyfriend. Now my worries are about new horrors: aging family members and their surgeries, protecting our baby boy from covid, the general state of the world. Everything feels like it’s on the verge of crashing down around me, and yet the sun continues to rise each morning. What’s keeping you sane during these wild times? I’ve never been a fan of giving things up in January (or any month). At the start of a brand-new year, when many people eschew sweets and alcohol, I bake madeleine cookies and open bottles of wine with delight. When others are exercising like maniacs, I’m the person taking extra-long baths and trying to sleep more. I’ve been loving the soft gray cashmere sweater that my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas. I am reading books about permaculture and dreaming about planting a spring garden. Texts from friends with pictures of cute babes and assurances that yes, you are doing a great job, are like buoys in a stormy sea. I’m invigorated by bowls of Shan Dong dumplings in steaming broth. A first pair of emerald green shoes, no bigger than the palm of my hand, arrives in a package on our doorstep. All signs from the universe to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to ease into this new year.