2022 in Review
The year that was three
As I attempt a review of 2022, it becomes clear that it’s not the exercise it once was. I used to enjoy the packing up of twelve months, the analysis of a neat chapter in a life. The years don’t stand on their own legs anymore, though. 2022 is ’21 is ’20. 2023 will likely be a continuation of the same honking catastrophe. Nearly three years, all mashed together.
Years are a state of mind, at this point, with no discernable end or beginning. We are in late stages — pandemic, democracy, capitalism, planet. We are quite possibly in the nebulous last stages of everything and it’s a mess.
This year has come to mean these pandemic years. I honestly can’t remember when anything happened. Time is lost, muddled, tangled up in its own threads. Did we eat the blue crabs on the porch this year or last? Did we meet the Californians two summers ago? When did we lose Aunt E, and when did Glory die? Which Christmas was the failed babka? The French onion soup? When was the lost book deal, the distance graduation, the eye crisis, the first breakup? When did I fall in love with dal, or start eating candy like a child? When did who have Covid, when were which vaccines? How long ago did I make that triumphant braided lemon bread, or the fabulous apple cake? When did we buy the ramen bowls, the lawn chairs, the guitar? Smoked fish at sunset on the…
