2020-21

The other day two of my youngest neighbors--siblings--negotiated a selling price for my house, property, truck, and Max. Relying on my finely honed business acumen, I talked them down from their billion dollar offer to a more manageable million even. Within a minute or two, I think they rather reasonably concluded a million might not be within their grasp. The discussion derailed when I mentioned I would have to move after the sale. 

The older of the two wondered out loud if I might still be living here when she turned 18. Quick arithmetic--another ten-plus years--so pushing 78? Yes, I answered, perhaps I will. With that conversational arc concluded, off they went to reexamine the winter garden, especially the lavender.

Here in this house a decade hence? On that possibility I would say I am cautiously optimistic. 

Of course, a phrase like cautiously optimistic could be considered jelly-spined, but I would argue I feel cautious optimism with the same vigor that someone might claim an irrepressible optimism or a nihilistic pessimism. 

And so the year 2021? On this matter--fortune-telling really if you think about it--I am of the same mind. Cautiously...cautiously optimistic.

Not sure why I feel this way given the likely-to-happen list so easily generated. Floods, hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, earthquakes. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and whomever else might feel the need to set others' heads on fire. Violence, lies, thievery (and on the grandest of scales), ignorance.

And the virus, and all this invasive force has manifested here and abroad.

Cautiously optimistic? Perhaps because I read enough history to crumple the current zeitgeist into a minuscule ball of time. A decade, a lifespan--makes me chuckle. And I can just as easily peer back 400 years and then imagine going forward to 2421. Four hundred years? A piffle.

Or a coping mechanism. 

To the point, I am more attuned to my perennials and trees reawakening than whether the next calendar year will seem somehow lighter than the one passing. April 21st looms larger to me than January 1st or August 11th (my birthday).

Not that I do not wholeheartedly wish you and yours and the wider world well in 2021. We'll see how it goes. Perhaps we can revisit the subject the same time next year. So, I remain yours, cautiously optimistic.