Week 38 - By the end of 2021...

Edited BY


G P Kennedy


Welcome back to the Coronavirus Stories blog. We hope that you are rested and well-fed since we last convened, in mid-December. 


To kick off the New Year we asked our Storytellers to think about what 2021 might look like for them. We started them off with a teaser and let our maestros of words and pictures run with the thought 'By the end of 2021...'


Ellie - Milan, Italy


It feels great to be in another year. I know that the time span, since the last time I wrote here, is very short and nothing has changed much.


But psychologically, everything is different. It feels like the counter has started anew and we are given a clean slate.


I have a lot of expectations of this New Year, but they are all related to things that are within my power - or at least aspiration thereof. Perhaps the most important lesson learned in 2020 is to expect the unexpected and not rely on guarantees.

 




So, I am hoping that by the end of this New Year I will accomplish two art projects that have been brewing for a long time.


One of them involves my new hometown and is a public art project. It is not public, however, in the sense of its funding, only on the basis of its fruition.


It will be surprising... so stay tuned!

 







In the past year, friendships were the highlight and the sustenance of my life.


In the darkest moments of panic and despair, when the eye of the storm seemed to hit the country in an especially violent rage, what kept my spirits up were the friends who contacted me with concern.



Some of them I had not heard from in a long time, so their messages were especially precious.


My promise to myself is, by the end of the year, to reach out to my most distant friends at least once during the year, with a special letter, and sustain them no matter what part of the world they are

 



And finally, or firstly, I start every New Year with a review of my last year's weekly planner.


This is just a practical gesture as I transfer the unfinished business to the new planner. Nothing nostalgic here.


However, this ritual has become for me a moment to recognize the new priorities of the future becoming present.


So with this new review, I will set aside the first month to rethink the priorities of life. Not my life, necessarily, but of life in general.


I'll let you know what comes around and what will be incorporated in this new beginning. In the meantime, have a safe and creative beginning of 2021!


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