I resisted the urge during the last week of 2021, when every person I know was in their own ambiguous hellscape—to try and catalogue (either in my head or on a device) the “accomplishments” of the past year. The kids were trying to grasp the concept of going from 2021 to 2022, and in separate conversations we tried to explain calendars, months, orbits, and that it was somewhat arbitrary a demarcation of time in some ways, but also invited them to think back on the changes of the year—our trip to Hawaii and moving from upstate back to Brooklyn, and starting a new school, new friends they’d made, new skills they’d conquered, as an indication of their own big and surmountable milestones.
They were fairly flippant about it all. Ada lost her second tooth on December 30th in a bloody Fuji apple and after the tooth fairy forgot to come that night it meant that New Year’s Eve was more hotly anticipated for the impending arrival of said fairy than for the turning of the calendar.
We capped off the year with a family hike up and around Joppenbergh Mountain in the haze of a low laying cloud. The hike is notable for its quickly satisfying peak over the town of Rosendale and the old rail trestle that cuts across it. It’s also notable for its abundance of fossils, which any amateur archaeologist could dig up, making it ripe for kid treasure-hunting and delight. Despite this, the second half of the hike was a slog. Ada was outdoors (no joke) for the first time in at least a week after protesting the cold entirely in favor of Legos and TV at her grandparents. Julian learned the word “sore,” recently and claims a multitude of his body parts are sore any time he doesn’t want to walk, then goes slack and insists he has to poop.
Jacob was hiking with a bluetooth speaker in his pocket, after Ada had claimed wanting to dance to Lady Gaga in the forest, but when confronted with the actual opportunity, was lackluster about it. Julian, however, insisted on hearing “Yellow Submarine,” a song Jacob often sings to him at bedtime, and the lyrics of which he’s memorized. Both kids demanded I hold the speaker, and then each held one of my legs. Julian asked to turn up the volume multiple times (egregious forest behavior), the two kids hung off my body, and some raindrops started to come down. The sheer force with which I needed to propel my body forward to finish the two mile hike was the complete encapsulation of 2021 parenting: ushering the family across the finish line through any means possible.
With the speaker in hand, bribes of pizza, and some actual dragging, we made it back to the car. It was 4:30 and the sun was just setting in the haze. Julian was frustrated we’d walked down after feeling like we’d rejected his superior suggestion to float down on a cloud, and stomped into the car making his meanest scrunchy face he knows. The victory was, of course, getting out at all, some differentiating activity in the often un-parsable time that is The Pandemic, to make it more memorable. And that we did do.
Its struck me that night that the things that felt like personal “successes” of 2021 were establishing sustainable coping mechanisms (long walks/hikes, yoga, gardening, therapy, ordering more takeout, embracing convenience, getting childcare even when I didn’t have to work), doing things that helped establish focus in a sea of noise and chaos (podcasts, reading, writing, gardening), and relinquishing expectations. The last category has been the hardest, and often comes in the form of being a different kind of parent than I think I want to be. It’s letting the kids watch more tv, eat a lot of candy, not making it to the park, leaving more messes on the floor, wearing the same clothes four days in a row, and not making Ada do the homework that now comes home in her backpack. It’s putting an extra cherry in their cocktail just because whatever, letting them go outside without the coat in freezing temps, and accepting that they don’t always love the hikes. That some things we do to satisfy their expectations and some things I do to alleviate or meet my own, and they are often not the same things.
Recommendations for coping:
Making all the comfort foods, like this Vegetarian Lasagna Bolognese and big pots of Rancho Gordo beans
Adding Luxardo Cherries to everything (with seltzer for the kids, in an Old Fashioned for the grown-ups)
Putting your beverages in nice glassware, like these or these.
Listening to this interview with George Saunders, to feel OK having hope
Doing some Yoga with Adriene, because Adriene.
Hugging this splurgy deadstock linen body pillow.
Watching the new Beatles doc TV show Get Back (Disney+), and some movies: C’mon C’mon by Mike Mills (Amazon Prime), The Hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino (Netflix), and some dark world-ending humor in Don’t Look Up by Adam McKay (Netflix).
Happy New Year to you all.