After a full year devoid of lockdowns, a year in which we dropped our masks and entered back into society, a year without homeschool but with so many gatherings to take its place, anxiety-wise, our quartet of a family (plus Kevin the Dog) are currently enjoying a cloudy day from home, specifically the couch. The past few weeks have been dominated by assemblies and dance concerts and end-of-school-year parties and Christmas and trips to the beach and we are tired.

Were we not thrown into this year via catapult? Because that’s what it feels like, and I’m feeling it. Which is why stillness feels so good right now. It also offers me a vantage point from which to think back on the year and appreciate what it had to offer, which I offer to you now. Before we draw a line under it (and before I’ve even gotten out to buy a planner for 2023, which is not helping my anxiety), here are some things I discovered in–and cannot recommend enough from–2022.

CURIOSITY

It’s annoying that there’s always more to learn. It’s so annoying, in fact, that some people live in denial of the fact altogether, choosing instead to believe that they already know everything! I know this because I used to be one of them! A funny thing happens, though, when we reach for material beyond what we already know, or believe, to be true: we grow. We learn and change and, I think, become more generally tolerable people to be around.

I’m reading from authors and thinkers whose names/beliefs would have sent me clutching my pearls and pitchfork a decade ago, and I’m so thankful for all I never knew that they’re teaching me. I’m thankful for Esau McCaulley and Jemar Tisby and Bryan Stevenson et al and all they’ve shown me about systemic racism in society and the church; for Steve Silberman and Bill Nason and Devon Price et al and all they’ve shown me about neurodivergence and the beauty of thinking differently; for Beth Barr and Kristin DuMez and Aimee Byrd et al and all they’ve written about gender roles and the patriarchy, Biblically-speaking; for Dan Siegel and Bessel Van der Kolk et al and what I’ve learned from them about neuropsychology and self-awareness and healing. I’m grateful for the book I just got about teaching kids their place in the greater story.

In her book Advent (which is not about what you think it’s about–another favourite theme of mine), Fleming Rutledge writes about something a former colleague told her about engaging children’s imaginations: “He said he didn’t mind his children believing in Santa Claus, because it was ‘training for transcendence.'” She writes of the importance of a childlike sense of wonder, which is missing from so many of us–this ability to be humbled and awed by all we don’t know.

BETTER SEATS

For the past few years, a group of friends and I have made a habit of going to the ballet regularly. A privileged treat, to be sure, but I’ve made every effort to cut corners when booking our seats, and for the most recent show, my deal-seeking landing me in a seat in which I could only picture Juliet’s balcony in my mind. And maybe see the tail-end of a pirouette when the dancer moved to the outer edge of stage right. I decided this would no longer do. What’s the point of being there if you can’t see?

I’m not skimping on the view any more. Where we choose to sit–in the Opera House, in life–impacts what we take away from a performance, a relationship, everything. Restricted views may end up costing more in the end.

FRIENDSHIP

I’m a terrible gift-giver. I have every intention of choosing gifts that reflect thoughtfulness and a desire to please the recipient, to show them that I really know them. Then I get tired of looking and grab the first nearly-relevant item off the shelf so I can get out of that God-forsaken mall. But I’ve received so many great presents recently, like a “nervous” sweatshirt, a too-perfect doormat, a mug that reads “I have the patience of a saint: Saint Cunty McFuckoff.” I can’t look at these gifts without laughing, and feeling deeply known (and loved anyway). Which brings me to…

GRACE

It’s, like, the only thing I write about, really, because everything else comes back to it. In fact, I was going to add subheadings like Grief and Therapy (see the lyrics at the end of this post) but this is getting long and my latest Netflix obsession isn’t going to watch itself, so I’ll just roll all that into this mammoth topic of grace, that rules my life and changes my heart and dictates my path. It’s grace that led me to therapy and healing and brings me through both, still, with all their gifts along the way. It’s grace that makes me curious enough to actually get to know a person before judging them (or at least to watch their documentary, which makes me wonder why they’re filming every scene of their lives but also shows me they brought receipts and what can I say? I have a soft spot for a man who takes his family across the world to a better life; also, gingers rock). It’s grace that shows me I’m being a bitch to the man who anticipates my needs better than anyone ever has (and it’s grace that allows me to vent about him when he drives me insane and still keeps us together). It’s grace that makes space for my sadness and joy and defeats and victories and weaves it all into a story that is worth being told because that story points to an even bigger one. It’s grace that brings people in my life who see the potential for me to make a difference warranting a possible career change (a possible career, period) and that opens terrifying and wonderful new worlds and possibilities, then lets me live in the tension of not knowing what will happen–and somehow makes that safe and exhilarating at the same time.

I’m thankful that 2022 held so much, but it didn’t hold everything, which is why we can look both back and ahead, and breathe in grace the whole time.

I don’t go to therapy to find out if I’m a freak
I go and I find the one and only answer every week
And it’s just me and all the memories to follow 
Down any course that fits within a fifty minute hour
And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
And she’s so kind, I think she wants to tell me something, 
But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself
And she says

What do you hear in these sounds? 
What do you hear in these sounds?

I say I hear a doubt, with the voice of true believing
And the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving
And she says “Oh, ” I say, “What?” she says, “Exactly, “
I say, “What, you think I’m angry
Does that mean you think I’m angry?”
She says “Look, you come here every week
With jigsaw pieces of your past
Its all on little soundbites and voices out of photographs
And that’s all yours, that’s the guide, that’s the map
So tell me, where does the arrow point to? 
Who invented roses?”
And

What do you hear in these sounds? 
What do you hear in these sounds?

And when I talk about therapy, I know what people think
That it only makes you selfish and in love with your shrink
But oh how I loved everybody else
When I finally got to talk so much about myself

And I wake up and I ask myself what state I’m in
And I say well I’m lucky, ’cause I am like East Berlin
I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks
And I could hear their radio
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing
And they’d know that I was scared
They’d would know that I was guessing
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling
And their calling out just like me, and

The stories that nobody hears, and
I collect these sounds in my ears, and
That’s what I hear in these sounds, and
That’s what I hear in these,
That’s what I hear in these sounds.

–Dar Williams, “What Do You Hear in These Sounds”