Bramblings: 2020 with 20/20 vision

By BECKY NELSON
By Becky Nelson

The airports were packed last week, despite warnings that travel might help spread the novel coronavirus by sharing air and breath in airplanes, buses, cars and the households of loved ones. Some folks were already gathering more than a week ago, with social media boldly showing hugging parents, friends, grandparents and siblings trying to replace the haunt of doom the virus has brought to our planet with a little bit of unadvised holiday cheer.

The media has been ferreting out photos of holiday gatherings, caroling groups, office parties and people who were urged to stay home breaking the rules of acceptable virus-shunning/social distancing. Folks are tired. Folks who lost their jobs months ago whose unemployment benefits are running out are scared. Folks who are losing their homes because they cannot meet their financial obligations are scared. Folks that are struggling to put food on the table for their families are scared. The season of hope and light this past year was for many a season of trepidation and darkness.

We seem to be living in a swirling fog of political mud, personal anxiety, national confusion and global fear of the unknown. Foreign powers are infiltrating our most secret of national secrets via vulnerabilities in our computer connections. People working on the front lines of the health crisis are getting tired, working double and triple shifts in some cases and finding time off a thing of the past as new waves upon waves of the seriously ill clog up the hallways, ICUs and tents. Predictions are flying that the virus will pick up speed after the holidays and hospitals, some already at capacity, will overflow with the sick and those struggling to survive. We are in the midst of a war with an unseen enemy that can be passed to us in a moment of personal weakness or even with all precautions taken, infiltrating a mask or picked up on an item touched by someone that had no clue they carried the beast.

We are scared. We are lonely because we can’t visit mom or dad or Great-Aunt Tilly. We can’t have our kids and grandkids visit us in the nursing home. We feel trapped in our apartments, with only the internet and the television to connect us with the outside world. We miss the human touch, the hug, the handshake, the kiss on the cheek. We are social herd animals, and we aren’t safe out in the herd. This is a weird holiday season and the new year looks anything but happy. We are isolated in the most social of times. It is hard and many of us aren’t handling it well.

I worry about the world psyche and spirit. I worry that this prolonged disconnect is doing as much if not more damage to us than the virus itself. I worry about the folks at the grocery store, at the checkout at the box store, in the hospitals taking care of the ill, in the nursing homes taking care of the isolated and the lonely and the unwell elderly, in the ambulances and police cars trying to keep us safe, and in their homes trying to avoid other people because they might carry the disease. I worry about the kid that didn’t have a gift this Christmas. I worry about the kids and the families that might not have enough to eat this New Year’s weekend. I worry that we are treating each other like the enemy, not the disease as the enemy.

I worry.

But I am hopeful as well. There is hope in this time of fear. There is light in this time of darkness. With vaccines hitting the arms of all who trust in the goodness and the goodwill behind the folks developing them, there is hope. With the outpouring of financial assistance to food pantries and social agencies from those who have the means, there is hope. With folks caring for other folks, there is hope. With each dawn of each new day, there is hope. With my orders being placed from seed companies, there is hope. With the lengthening daylight in each day, there is hope. With the miraculous discovery of the mRNA vaccines, there is hope for protection from much more than the coronavirus and all its mutations.

They say hindsight is 20/20. Let’s use 2020 as 20/20 and truly learn from what has transpired. Let’s review the lessons from each struggle and each tragedy and remind ourselves of what is truly important on a day to day basis and as we look to the future. Please join me in trying to quell the fear and the worry and replace them with hope and light. Do what you can to make tomorrow a better day and celebrate the reasons for these holiday seasons and the lessons learned in this weird year. Let 2021 be the launch of a new and glorious odyssey.

Let 2020 rest in hindsight and history.

Becky Nelson is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, New Hampshire. You can contact her through the farm page on Facebook and Instagram, visit the retail store or email her at [email protected].