It’s been… a year, to say the least. For all of us.
The history majors in the future will be doing theses on individual weeks, rather than presidencies like my generation. The continued slaying of unarmed black men in America and overall racial injustices galvanized a world that was almost exclusively stuck inside for - at the time - two months. Our collective sadness reached the lowest point in decades, according to Hedonometer, (a site that tracks the overall happiness of English speaking Twitter) on May 25th: the day Amy Cooper was caught on video calling the police on a birdwatcher, using his race to falsely claim her life was in danger. (He had her on video, and had merely asked her to leash her dog.) That same day, in another part of America, George Floyd was murdered.
“The most important election of our lifetimes” is a phrase that we hear every cycle. This time, as a Canadian, I truly believe that to be true. A process that typically takes a couple of days, compounded by a petulant orange man-child lying (as he has done over the last 4 years) means that our eyes are all on the remaining states. Though it looks to be the case that Joe Biden will win the 2020 Presidency, it’s not 100% yet. If it had gone the other way, I truly believe we would have watched the slow and violent death of the giant. And we all watched on, powerless to help our brothers and sisters.
(This gets better, I promise.)
Now we seem to have hurtled through the autumn season, the nights (and days) are getting ever colder, and now my thoughts turn to my friends. My friends that have to shovel snow. My friends that lament the border restrictions stopping them from getting to a warm climate for Christmas. My friends that don’t ski, or engage in any outdoor winter activities. Even my friends that aren’t the “cozying type” in slippers and baked goods in the oven. (Side note: I miss having a fireplace more than I ever thought I could.) In the summer, sure we were “loved down”, but we made it through with 5:30am sunrises, socially distant barbecues, sparse patio sessions, and paddle boarding with maybe a dog as company.
I’ve said for years, that anyone can love summer, but it takes a special kind of crazy to love the winter. I’m so grateful that I’m one of them. In a completely unforeseen scenario, I’m going to come out of this relatively ok. And when the winter starts to ebb, sometime in April or (fingers crossed) May, we may have a vaccine available (toes crossed). So this could be the worst time for my summer friends. If there’s anything. I can do to help them, I hope they’ll let me know.
As long as it doesn’t involve watching biking on a pow day. I’ll be busy washing my face.
