Happy New year to you and yours!

I'm grateful to put 2020 in the history books, but not brave enough to make predictions that 2021 is going to be any better... I'm more leaning towards that we are just part of a long slow collapse of the old ways, perhaps to be replaced by something better being birthed out of the ruins.

As an independent/self-employed person I'm just trying to stabilize the process of merely staying afloat because the situation in the world around us makes me loath to make any big goals or projections. Somehow, I don't think I'm alone in that.

Perhaps the best thing — and there's a sort of poetic justice in this — of 2020 is that the government stimulus back in the spring substantially paid for our garden expansion that somewhat allowed — and this year will allow more — us to become less attached to the government.

Another good thing is that our neighborhood — historically a place where "knowing each other" rarely extended beyond waves from the front lawns — has grown a lot closer and more into locally collaborative projects of helping each other.

Anyway, what I do like about 2021 — in a purely "cosmic" sort of way is the fact that 20→21 feels like progress.

Yeah, it's a stretch...