Volume 2 because it’s the new year! Can you believe it?
I put off working on this yesterday because it was the last day of my holiday break. For three blissful weeks, I mentally checked out from work to spend time with family (physically) and friends (virtually). Most years, my family takes a trip the week between Christmas and New Year, so it was a bit jarring to realize that we were going to spend it at home - especially considering we have been doing nothing BUT staying at home the past nine months.
Still, the quiet was welcome. The days blended into each other, especially this last week when almost everyone else was also on break from work and couch potato-ing. I watched BTS content all day every day, when I wasn’t playing with the baby, which was how I wanted to spend this time. It was glorious.
Though I did not make a 2020 wrap-up essay, I did think about what I wanted my word for 2021 to be. Some years it comes quickly, and some years it takes a bit more reflection. I started practicing this back when I was still in the scrapbooking world, and it’s stayed with me long after.
My New Year post last year said:
NEW HAPPY YEAR! Somebody once greeted me this way and the saying stuck with me. How do I make this coming year (every year, really) a new happy year? Same question applies every month, week, or even day. I’m not a goal setter, but leaning into joy has climbed higher over the priority list over the years.
To think that joy ended up being badly sought in 2020, not just by me, but all of us. ‘Leaning into joy’ really did become what I had practiced throughout the year. First I did a daily 1-minute vlog for the first 100+ days of lockdown (my take-away: content creation is not easy!) and now I have this newsletter to capture the things I want to remember.
It wasn’t until Clars greeted me with “Hopeful New Year!” that I started to feel like I may have found my word. There’s a lot of bad juju in the air that has made me feel hopeless for a long time now. I’m not an optimistic person by nature, but my friend Isa is a self-confessed “hope fiend” and she wrote this in her latest blog entry:
Hope is the ax or the spear or the ladder or whatever it is you need -- hope is the thing you have to build with your own bare hands just to haul yourself out of the hole that you're in. It is hard work and discipline and desperation and trying and failing and trying and failing and trying again and again and again until you finally feel like you're getting somewhere.
Hope is what I need this year. Shortly after landing on my word, I read Aminatou Sow’s newsletter Crème de la Crème that included this quote from Susan Sontag, in her diary entry dated 1972, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980:
Kindness, kindness, kindness.
I want to make a New Year’s prayer, not a resolution. I’m praying for courage.
And it lined up pretty well with a tweet that made me laugh: “I have zero goals, I only want to be kind!” Likewise, I have zero goals, and I, too, only want to be kind. My New Year’s prayer though isn’t for courage — it’s for hope.
Shop Small, Love Local
At Vicky’s wedding a few years ago, she sat me beside her friend Kyla who owns a business that I ended up patronizing many times over in the years since. It’s called The Olive Tree, and she makes loveliest linen products. I bought a few masks from her early in quarantine (so beautiful!!), and for Christmas purchased the embroidered bolster set for my niece and nephew. They turned out so well!
Currently…
Celebrating my BTS bias V/Taehyung’s birthday on December 30. I had told my friends I wanted to spend December 29 and 30 in bed just scrolling ARMY Twitter for Taehyung’s birthday, and it actually happened. I was so happy. I ordered from a few cupsleeve events and indulged in hotteok (Korean sweet pancakes) and binged on Tae videos all day. I appreciate my ARMY group chat so much; when Tae went live they frantically called me to make sure I didn’t miss it. Yes to same-energy friends!
Listening to BTS on Soundcloud in the evenings. They’re a different band on that platform. I listen to V’s Snow Flower as I get ready for bed every night; the jazzy romantic vibes are almost too much for me to bear. Jimin released Christmas Love on the same day Tae released Snow Flower and both songs together got me into a holiday mood.
Ringing in the new year with Big Hit’s New Year’s Eve Live virtual concert. So well done, especially the BTS performances with foreign acts. I tried strawberry soju with our favorite sparkling strawberry basil lemonade, and it was delicious. We ate a grazing box that somebody had given us for Christmas. I wasn’t expecting to see fireworks since I had heard there was a ban, but we did see some from our garden! All in all, not a bad evening.
Organizing my phone gallery. 15,000 pictures, mostly screenshots of receipts lol. My main reason for doing this: too many times I want to reply to something with a BTS meme and can’t find the photo. HAHA.
Longreads
How to rethink your New Year’s resolutions for 2021 — Maggie Smith, Net-A-Porter.
“We can trace the word [“resolution”] back to the Latin resolvere, meaning ‘loosen’ or ‘release.’ Now this is a metaphor, an image, that I can embrace. It suggests I am enough on day one of the new year. I don’t need to do or be more; perhaps I actually need less. So, I’m taking some time now to reflect on what’s weighed me down this year. I’m asking myself: What can I set down in 2020 instead of carrying it into 2021? What can I loosen or release?”
New Year’s Resolutions That Will Actually Lead to Happiness — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic.
“Perhaps this is a new way for you to look at forgiveness and gratitude—as resolutions to work on to raise your happiness, rather than fleeting emotions you can’t control.”
Your Year in Maps — Laura Bliss and Jessica Martin, Bloomberg CityLab.
“This project is ironic because a map symbolizes travel, discovery, and possibility, almost all of which Covid-19 has suppressed. Pragmatically, I don’t need a map when I’m not leaving my house. But in another sense, I feel like I need maps more than ever. I don’t know what comes next, or which metaphorical life-turn to take during this time of perpetual uncertainty.”
Waiting and Thinking — Bim Adewunmi, … the fuck is this?
“I had thought of waiting as a passive thing, a sort of stillness until the big arrow showed up and pointed you in the right direction with a pat on the head and maybe a set of instructions... Sometimes waiting is just life. It's the stuff you're doing before you start doing... the other stuff.”
These Precious Days — Ann Patchett, Harper’s Magazine.
So long, and so lovely. Many times I had assumed I knew how the story would end, or what it was really about, and turned out to be wrong.
What the Hole Is Going On? The very real, totally bizarre bucatini shortage of 2020. — Rachel Handler, Grub Street.
Utterly delightful read. Sometimes stories really take you for a ride - this one was so fun.
A 12-Year-Old’s Letter to Her Post-Pandemic Self — Julia Cho, The New York Times.
“Remember — everything is replaceable and unimportant, but people are the only true thing that matter in this modern-day world.” I cried reading this.
‘Where are the women?’ Uncovering the Lost Works of Female Renaissance artists — Sylvia Poggioli, NPR.
“Florence is one of the main stops on any art lover's European itinerary. At the Uffizi Galleries, visitors can have their fill of works by Renaissance masters Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. Of course, none of these artists are women. In 2009, a new nonprofit foundation in Florence started to investigate why.”
My Therapist Suggested I Try This Habit Whenever My Self-Doubts Creep In, And It’s Been Super Useful So Far — Jasmine Vaughn-Hall, BuzzFeed.
A different kind of decluttering.
Modern Love: My Five-Week-Long First Date — Maggie Shipstead, The New York Times.
A Modern Love story set in Antartica!!
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Yours from afar,
Pinky
hopeful happy new year, pinky!! ♥️