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This new year feels so clean and shiny and new, like a bullet journal before it’s filled with all of my hastily jotted down notes and cross-outs. Which inevitably makes me think about Melissa back in January of 2020. That foolish woman who had no clue how the next 11 months would unfold. It makes you squint at 2021, wondering its intentions. Will this year mostly be a continuation of 2020 with only the change of a single numeral? Or will we get our vaccine and return to life in the outside world? Only future me knows.

I’m choosing to be hopeful with a side of realism?

Things I’m carrying with me into this new year: Hard limits and firm boundaries (with my time, with my safety, with my newfound ability to say “no”). Reading with my guinea pig while working on Josh to see my vision of a house full of guinea pigs. Not overscheduling myself and being okay with things being okay. Keeping my friends and family close (at least, via Zoom and text).

New things we’re doing: Working my way through my guilt TBR. (These are purchased TBR books that I keep passing over because library holds come in, even though I want to read these purchased TBRs more.) Playing chess. Doing more crosswords. Not eating as if the pandemic means there are zero calories in my food.

2020 caught me off-guard. I’m going into 2021 looking straight ahead and side-to-side. Checking my rear-view mirror. Driving forward, carefully and fully masked.

What are you bringing with you into the new year?

“Being a good housekeeper, many say [Befana] will sweep the floor before she leaves. To some the sweeping meant the sweeping away of the problems of the year.” —Wikipedia’s page on Befana.

Even though we are Jewish, even though we don’t even have Chinese food on Christmas, even though we aren’t into any other winter holiday… we still celebrate Befana Day. Which is tonight. The astute among you will notice that no matter what we call it, it’s really Epiphany. I picked up the idea 25+ years ago in Italy, and I’ve been celebrating it ever since.

Though, this year, that sweeping part takes on new meaning. Get out of the home, 2020.

The twins have always celebrated Befana Day, graduating from candy in their shoes to candy placed on top of drawings of shoes (because it is really gross when you think about it, even if the candy is wrapped). Befana drops off a gift, treats, and a letter that falls somewhere between a lecture and love song. Tonight, we’ll eat gnocchi pomodoro and go to bed a little early to ensure that she’ll have enough time to drop off presents before flying on her broomstick to the next house.

It’s just enough. Befana Day is one treat and one gift, regardless of age. It’s one simple meal and no other obligations. That’s about all I can handle at the start of 2021.

It may or may not be International Blog Delurking Week. The first full week of January (January 3 – 9, 2021) is when we’re supposed to slither out of the reading closet and check in with an “I’m here” comment. I’m not sure if anyone does this anymore. Back in the olden days, people would pop up out of the woodwork. Nowadays, not so much.

So let’s see what happens.

So welcome to International Blog Delurking Week. I make a badge every year to mark the occasion, and I give you full permission to right click and grab it for your very own.

My reward for remembering to do this (when I could have just as easily forgotten) is that you have to delurk for this worldwide holiday, which is super serious and important. Right?

It is fairly easy. Leave a comment in the comment section below admitting that you’re here. You can simply raise your hand and meekly admit that you’re here with a simple, one-word “here” comment; or you can proudly raise your hand and tell us all a bit about yourself (my preferred method); or you can tell me what type of cookie you’d be if you were a lump of cookie dough (see, I’m trying to make it easy for you by even providing a comment prompt). The point is that I want to know about the people who read me, since there is a huge discrepancy between the number of readers in actuality and the number of readers I actually know are reading. Or a tongue-twister like that.

And that’s all you have to do to celebrate.

So (clears throat to nudge you along), who is here?

There was a question posed in an article earlier this year that I found recently. Are we morally obligated to meditate? Meaning, if we believe that meditation makes people less reactive and more compassionate, are we morally obligated to meditate because to not take up this practice means that we are knowingly choosing not to be our most compassionate selves?

Does that make sense? It makes sense in my head.

I mean, yes, meditation benefits the individual, but if it also benefits the community, should we all be meditating? Or, by that reasoning, replace it with anything that has been proven to benefit more than the individual. For instance, are we morally obligated to read because reading makes us more empathetic? I’m sure we could compile a long list of similar activities.

The article gives the short answer of “no,” with a more nuanced answer following that. But I thought the question itself was more interesting than the dissection of it.

I meditate daily, and I have for years, both as a regular practice every morning and as a stress reliever on an as-needed basis. I don’t know if it has changed me because I’ve been doing this form of meditation on-and-off since I was a child and learned it, so while my practice has been more structured vs. less structured at various times in my life, there has never been a time since I was a small child that I haven’t meditated.

But it has never occurred to me to encourage anyone else to meditate except for my kids. I’ve taught other people how to meditate because they asked to learn and I remember how I was taught in such a way that I can pass it along to others. But I’ve never thought to encourage the practice in someone who didn’t ask because I think it’s something they should do. In other words, happy to teach if the person asks me to teach them. But I’ve never thought to offer because I think they should be meditating. Because I’m not sure it is for everyone.

I’d be interested in hearing your opinion. Are we morally obligated to do things that benefit others as much as it benefits ourselves?

It’s pretty rare that I cut out an article from People magazine… but I cut out an essay by Caterina Scorsone from the November 9th issue because it was—in a word—amazing. She didn’t say anything new, she just said it well. Very very well.

She writes about her daughter, Pippa, and what she learned raising a child with Down syndrome. It’s a way of viewing the world that clears away the clutter, and I think everyone needs to hear her thoughts, take them to heart, and apply them liberally across all facets of life.

She writes,

Most of us have grown up believing that we’re supposed to aspire to some sort of standard of “perfection,” some idea of humanity that is located at the top of a vertical tower of value. How smart are you? How fast? How thin? What’s your gender? Your ethnicity? What have you bought and achieved? Do you qualify for love? But when Pippa was born, it suddenly became crystal clear that the emperor wasn’t wearing clothes. There is no standard, objective, perfect human being. The metrics of perfection are arbitrary and imposed in the service of those who fit them. My daughter is perfect. Exactly the way she is.

I love that, and think we need to spend more time kicking down that vertical tower of value rather than reinforcing it by supporting it with attention or worth.