2020 Hindsight

If I'd had any inkling back in January how 2020 would unfold, would I have done anything differently?

Well, I certainly wouldn't have wasted so much time trying to plan a student trip to Manhattan, a plan that went out the window in early March. I suppose I could have stocked up on toilet paper or placed bets on the results of the Presidential election, but I'm not a hoarder or a gambler so I'd probably just do exactly what I did: scramble to adjust to circumstances as they arose. 

Looking back on a year of blog posts, it's clear that 2020 was a time for struggling in front of a computer screen and running away to the woods. The two activities are linked, of course: getting out into nature was my primary method of coping with the craziness caused by the Coronavirus, so it's little wonder that posts record a remarkable number of trips to Lake Katharine plus occasional forays further afield.

In 2020 I've written 159 posts--plus this one, for an even 160. That's fewer than some previous years but I'm doing my best. My blog attracted 48,000 views this year, with three posts attracting the most hits:

When the virus hits close to home (264 views)

Some (rejected) options for teaching this fall (176) 

I've taught online before--why is this time different? (152) 

Clearly, the 'rona played a big part in my blogging this year, crowding out other concerns. I wrote very few book reviews this year, my favorite being the review of Amit Majmudar's What He Did in Solitary, and my love for writing doggerel came to the forefront very rarely. (There's a good New Year's Resolution: less whining, more doggerel.)

I tried a few new things this year: editing a volume of essays on teaching comedy (submitted to the editorial board; awaiting reply); attending a local Black Lives Matter protest; attending drive-up church services in my car; feeding birds right out of my hand. In July I spent 24 hours in the hospital, suffering from a bad case of probably nothing wrong but let's run some tests anyway, and in October we relocated our Jackson residence from a parsonage to a lovely rental house in the woods, where we did a whole lot of painting and got accustomed to going to the laundromat.

And of course I learned to Zoom--with my classes, of course, but also with family, celebrating my grandkids' birthdays remotely before we widened our bubble in May. Considering that I'd never Zoomed before March, I had to get my skills up to speed really quickly when our spring classes moved online--and there followed a whole host of posts dealing with the demands of pandemic pedagogy: obsessing over annoying questions; setting up a workable home office; preparing multiple versions of classes; needing help when everyone else needs help too; figuring out social distancing in the classroom; missing the social interactions that make work wonderful; trying to prevent dangerous behavior; getting probed by the pandemic; and dealing with dreams that unmasked my anxieties.

But wait--there's more! It's kind of alarming how much I wrote about teaching under pandemic conditions this year, but sometimes writing was my only way to exert some control over an overwhelming situation. Writing and hiking and birding and canoeing: ways to find peace away from screens and anxieties.

I posted a lot of photos this year, very few dealing with teaching or coronavirus concerns. I seem to have spent some happy time sitting outside by the butterfly garden, helping my grandkids bake cookies or go sledding, and looking at birds and wildflowers and woods. Someday I hope those happy times will loom larger in my memory than all the angst of 2020, which is why I'm spending the last day of the year lingering over photos of places I've been and looking forward to the time when I can go there again.