Week 37 - we take a final look back at 2020

Edited BY


G P Kennedy


 W 37 - Ellie – Milan, Italy

 


It's hard to believe that this long, slow year is coming to an end. But somehow I don't regard the logic of events as following a human-established timeline, so the end of the year does not feel like the conclusion of a cycle.


I've always felt that Christmastime is a beginning, not an ending. This year, it feels like an uncharted itinerary of surprises and discoveries. And they came to me by way of unexpected sources.

 






The year started off with a newfound passion for succulents. And despite the fact that many of those who came to my hands, did, they taught me a lesson that I tried to apply to other facts of life.


The more one takes pride in the ability to cultivate and grow them. the worse they feel. I learned that I had to let them exist without the benefit of feeling any ownership of them.


Without the power to change the course of their lives, except to destroy them. To give them space. To just accept any good surprise as an unmerited gift. Because of them, I try to approach life, in general, the same way.

 




Later, the year brought to me the cat inherited from an elderly neighbor. Although the succulents taught me to give space to beautiful beings and avoid the attempts at ownership of them, the cat taught me the humility of not expecting anything in return.


He revealed the feelings that I thought were human only: intense grief for his landlady, fear of the unknown, frustration that his protest is not taken seriously. And the unfathomable influence of cross-species connection.


If the virus has to be accepted as a living being as well, I wonder if it is us who are fighting it or it is just there to show us how physically connected we are (through our collective contagion) and how much we need each other around. How necessary physical contact and presence is.

 




Finally, this year I finally felt a little bit Italian, included, and part of a community.


This image is of a Nativity scene on display in our provincial hospital, a COVID hotspot of the last couple of months.


As chaotic as the hospital management is, the nativity redeems the necessity to be there. A hospital nurse makes it out of plaster and gauze.


It is also my reminder of the need to open eyes to the beautiful and the hopeful amid the chaos and the devastation. I prefer to end the year on the high note of overlap of beauty and goodness and will hold it in my mind for as long as I can.

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