Some 2020 Thoughts

Everyone—everyone—is writing about the new year, their ideas about what the year may hold, some goals they hope to attain. Letters from friends reflect the same: what will 2020 bring?

Writer Katrina Kenison is standing on "pause, choose." Ben Hewitt, whose writing I greatly admire, just posted his first 2020 words at Lazy Mill Hill Farm, reflecting on being too busy to take notice and write, then promising himself to "pay attention," if just for the moment. My child-in-law Alise has set the intention to step free of "that old' gifted child' trap of perfectionism," being okay with not being immediately good at something, and hoping that her 35th year (she's a January 2 baby) she can give herself "some grace to continue to learn and grow."

The new calendar year is not yet three weeks old and I find myself wondering about 2020 myself. I feel I have only half-baked thoughts at best, but here are some of them.

HEALTH
The myeloma, progressive and incurable, continues to be surprisingly stable. My longevity (15+ years), flatline labs (no gains, no losses), and other medical markers, including no bone involvement, make my oncologists shake their heads. I am truly an outlier. Nevertheless, my overall quality of life, including declining energy and dragging around this disease's growing weight (figuratively speaking; think Marley's ghost), continues to deteriorate. I've had to step back from commitments at work and in the community, and from coffee dates with dear friends. I've met with my supervisor about changing projects I am too ill to undertake to the same degree I had intended. It has been several months of coming to accept that my body is wearing out.

That being said, I go on. "Persist," my longtime oncologist Tim told me Tuesday, as we discussed this. And I will, until it is no longer beneficial to persist. Part of my persistence in 2020 will take the form of being even more mindful of my daily life activities, especially diet and movement.

WRITING
In the last months of 2019, my writing trailed off. I only have a few posts on this site (and some of those just about the mundane topic of money); my last Myeloma Beacon column was in September. Perhaps, like Ben Hewitt, I have been too busy to take notice and need to pay more attention.

Something I will try in 2020 is a once-a-month 100 word post on this blog. Over my most recent trip to Mayo (just last week), I read the excellent Shapes of Native Nonfiction, a series of contemporary essays. One of the writers (and I did not note this closely enough) spoke about a series of 100 word essays she and other Native writers had published and the discipline it takes to write in only those few words. I was intrigued. Cait Flanders writes several 100 word posts within a larger post, which is one approach, but I am more interested in the spareness of just 100 words.

I am looking for ways to write more, be it this blog, poetry, or other forms. I just got my first poetry rejection of 2020 (okay, listen, one of those poems was really superb) and am aiming for 100 rejections this year. They don't have to all be in poetry.  As I think about it, I have TWO rejections for 2020 as in a first-time-ever move, my editor and publisher at the Myeloma Beacon rejected probably some of my best writing ever for being dark and too blunt. Only 98 to go.

ESSENTIALS
I continue to work at cutting out the noise (literally and figuratively) of daily life. My phone is often on silent; I try not to automatically turn to the electronic siren of Facebook and email and Google. I find I am still breaking that twitch, sometimes hourly, sometimes daily.

I still tend towards piles building up before I sit down and tame them, but I am getting better at reining the flow in before having to tame it.

Concentrating on writing more (see above) should help. (I usually write with pen and paper before turning anything with a keyboard on.) And although it is only January 18, I am increasingly thinking of this year's garden. I want to join Thoreau in fishing in that stream of time.

MONEY
I'll write about money issues in a separate post. As I looked back on 2019 spending on food, I made some observations and I am still turning those over. Stay tuned.

Although my earnings have increased in 2020, the demands on my money have become much tighter. I'll write about that too in the weeks to come.

Warren and I have been doing some retirement planning, realizing that it will be him alone in retirement as even with persisting, I likely do not have that many years left. Our mutual goal is to make sure he is in a good position after I am no longer alive and part of this household.

More to come.

TRAVEL
We (Warren and I) don't know what this year holds in terms of travel, conferences, and such. As I noted in my last post, we did treat ourselves to a slightly longer excursion to Mayo last week. Instead of blasting up and back, we meandered up and dallied back, spending two nights in Chicago (with the additional bonus of Warren being able to attend a board meeting of KV265 in person instead of over the phone). There are grandchildren in the Pacific Northwest, and dear friends in Maine, one place in this country I would very much like to see again. The League conference is in Minneapolis this June and I string together wild plans to travel to PDX (solo), meet up with Warren in Minneapolis, and then drive home via Mayo (my next appointment will be that time). I don't know if I am able to fly solo that far (see HEALTH, above) or able to afford that side trip (see MONEY, above). But it's fun to think about.

ALL ELSE
In the aforementioned rejected column, which may see light in some other site, I noted the amazing freedom in saying out loud that I can feel my body (and life) starting to wind down. It is as if the emotional and psychological equivalent of the 4th wall in the performing arts came down with that acknowledgment. The world has become far more immediate, far more real. Amazingly, it has stayed that way since that moment.

And that is something I can carry into 2020.