new year’s noodling

I’ve been enjoying the Youtube channel Rewilding Jude – no, scratch that. During the very bleak days of early November, when I was flattened by Covid and political grief, I watched this guy’s videos (along with this one about the undammed Klamath River) like they could be blueprints for a survivable life. So I’m following Jude’s lead in setting goals for this year, rather than making resolutions I’ll inevitably break or choosing a theme word I’ll most likely forget. I’m keeping my favorite existing goals – read and log a hundred-some books, ride Lenny every chance I get – and adding a few new ones.

They’re not marathons, let’s be very clear on that point. I’d like to do some longer bike rides with Jeremy, taking BART or a ferry to the East and South and North Bays. I’d like to learn some good recipes for Rancho Gordo beans. I’d like to finish college algebra and start a new math course on Khan Academy. I’d like to fill at least one of the watercolor sketchbooks I got for Christmas. Of course I have work and writing goals as well, I am a serious grownup person (not really) and I do need to figure out where I can most usefully help protect the vulnerable under this authoritarian regime. But it’s our 25th wedding anniversary so what I really want is to celebrate my delightful husband and enjoy our clever, funny, kind children. I want to live as if I were already in the Good Place. I want more time with the people I love.

What Jude and the Klamath helped me to do in November was to lift up the wobbly structure of my inner life and replace its crumbling foundation of naive optimism with one of tragic hope. It’s a shame we won’t live, but then again, who does?

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