#10: Year in Review
Good feelings about the future
Hello hello! At some point, you subscribed to this missive, which used to be twice monthly, but is now released at will while I pursue infinite rabbits down their individual internet holes.
How has your year been? Mine has been filled with lots of opportunities for growth, as with the best years. Reiterations on old themes like "I can work two hours a day and get away with it (most of the time)" or "oh wow, taking a few moments to breathe really does give me space to be a nicer person" and swimming through new ones like "losing two grandfathers in one year means even when you think you've worked through it, any random moment can bring on the waterworks" or even "when I honour my hunger, my body honours me and my needs". It's the whole sharmbungle, friends. (What is a sharmbungle? Who knows.)
In January, Omic-what permitting, I move countries to go work at an organisation literally in front of the school I graduated from. I am both excited for and a tiny bit dreading the maelstrom of memories this life circle will bring.
The good: I know the city and you know what they say about known devils. There will be wine to pursue a "strictly academic study" of in the region. There are friends-like-family all around (also swimming pools and mountains and a lake!). And my actual family will be a lot closer.
The wary-making: I arrive in the dead of winter, though soon to be lifting. There will be no handmade tortillas, tomatillos, or midnight tacos. There will be no husband and puppy to cuddle on the rough days (boooo to long distance but also maybe it's easier in this decade of our lives?). Oh and, after a lifetime of moving, am I really ready to set up shop and spend a year making new friends again only to leave right after?
Dunno, my parents are still doing it, so maybe I can handle it after all.
Anyway, the last few weeks have been a flurry of signing papers, booking tickets, cleaning out closets, and organising what feels like my life. Which is a pretty nice way to come into the end of the year, if you think about it. So here I am, feeling fresh, feeling grounded and unburdened and so, so loved and supported, and overall looking forward to the temporary change of p(l)ace.
How are you, dear reader? What's going on with you this December? Drop me a line.
Part of the organising I've been doing this end of year has been towards my writing. Somewhere in October, I started tracking how much work I had put in as a way of motivating myself to create a goal to work towards in 2021. The part-realistic, part-arbitrary number I came up with was writing a total of 55,000 words by the end of this year.
As of this newsletter, this year I have written those 55,000 words and published over 29,000 of them online, not counting offline writing, pitches, my notes app or writing for work.
You can check out a list of all my published work here. A few highlights of this year include:
An essay on how low-cost, low-tech high-data smart cities are paving the way for the future for Container Magazine. You can also listen to this as a podcast!
A visual love letter to Mexico City (the City as a Palimpsest issue of this newsletter)
An ethereal piece on distance and closeness in meditation practice
A piece on self-love that I am extremely proud of for Counterpoint Magazine. A BIG thank you to those of you who contributed to interviews for this. It's only available in beautiful risograph (i.e. print) for the moment, I think, but check in with me soon to see if I can sneak you a peek!
A review of my favourite (mostly non-fiction and entirely intelligent) books from this year and the last
A moment-in-time journal entry full of lovely feelings from this week.
More topically, I also wrote about the farmer protests in India and why they matter, as well as about emerging economies stepping up to make a change to their carbon emissions and our idea of growth.
Whew. That's all for a bit. I still have the book On Bodies coming, hopefully next year with more photos. Maybe I will also finally release some of my work viva voce for you podcast people. I may also write more issues of this newsletter next year if life and times permit and if there is interest, although given the number of times I've started drafting this one, who knows how many will actually end up in your inboxes.
Anyway, I hope you are cosy, winding down and feeling festive. Here are a few quick links for those of you who, like me, have a million tabs open at any given moment (though I'm down to just 11 today - I'm working on it).
An initiative I can get behind: Kate Raworth's doughnut economics in action in Amsterdam means you have to pay for all the extra costs you generate upon the environment
Is the never-ending pandemic making you miss your commute? (Not me, I just found other ways to decompress, e.g. doing nothing. It's very relaxing.)
Here's a question I bet you never considered: What's your punctuation style? And what does it say about you? Mine is (unfortunately always) characterised by excessive commas and parentheses, and because of those, an occasional alien face.
Find the alien face
And finally, here's a hilarious video of anti-fast-fashion crusader, Venetia La Manna, making her Fast Fashion Festive Granola. This one's for all you H&M/Zara etc. lovers and haters.
That's it from this end. Say hello if you can! Share this with a friend if you think they'll like it. And enjoy the holiday tetris!
Originally published on December 17, 2021