2024: A Year in Vignettes
Photo by Paul Rysz on Unsplash
How can I summarize 2024? In years past, I’ve thought of Janus – looking forward, looking back – or the vinegar tasters from Taoism.
Now what comes to mind is Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride. “Let me explain … no, it is too much. Let me sum up.”
Instead, I’ve decided to present a series of vignettes that, if lacking in complete explanation, at least offer context for this turbulent, exhausting year.
April
It was a cloudy day in San Antonio, the day of the total solar eclipse. I sat with a few coworkers who had traveled to the conference with me, along with a few thousand other attendees, in deck chairs and on picnic blankets on an Astroturf field. The conference had handed out cheap, cardboard eclipse glasses, but I had bought some durable plastic ones in case they hadn’t.
The night before Bill Nye had given a presentation at the conference, ostensibly about the eclipse, but he also urged us to pay attention to climate change, to remain aware of the impending catastrophe coming upon us. The conference planners had put him at the back of a large vendors hall; he wasn’t one of the keynote speakers, despite being a better educator than the ones they had invited.
When the eclipse began, we didn’t notice at first. A few of us were able to catch glimpses through the clouds, but we all wondered if it had been worth the effort.
Until we noticed the field had grown dark.
We were just on the edge of totality, so even if we couldn’t see the corona – and the clouds were thick enough that we wouldn’t regardless – there would be twilight. Nighttime lighting turned on at neighboring buildings. Our features were dim as we craned our necks, trying hard to find the sun, and we felt an evening chill.
And gradually, sunlight returned.
The clouds were departing as the eclipse ended, and we all began to disperse. Through gaps in the clouds, some of us were able to catch sight of the emerging sun. Late, but better than never.
June
Lyra, less than two months old, decided that my chest made an excellent pillow and had fallen asleep on it.
I had planned to visit my family in Asheville a month after my sister’s due date, giving her enough time to acclimate to caring for an infant, but still soon enough that my help would be appreciated. Instead, Lyra was born almost a month premature, and spent weeks in the NICU until her lungs finished developing.
The prognosis for premature infants has gotten better with modern medicine, but there is always an increased risk of complications. Thankfully, Lyra has had very few.
When I finally made it to Asheville, and I got to hold her for the first time, she was still the size of a typical newborn. But she was alert, aware, and enjoyed company. And seemingly every time I held her that week, she wanted to doze off, with me holding her against my chest.
A nice spot for a nap. Not a bad use of an uncle.
October
The power was out when I awoke that morning, the day after Milton. I had expected it, given the hurricane-force winds and rain that buffeted the house so strongly the walls creaked. Now, there was such quiet. No electronics hummed, no compressors buzzed from the fridge downstairs. All I could hear were my cats wrestling and the wind rustling the trees outside.
After first examining the ceiling for leaks – which I feared like any homeowner – I dressed, fed the cats, and stepped outside. The entire neighborhood was quiet, a morning of calm between the storm of the past day and the weeks of generator noise that would come soon after. Other residents had wandered out of their houses too. There was this collective haze, as if we had just stumbled out of a Gravitron ride.
Leaves and fallen brush covered the road, the lawns, cars, roofs. As I stumbled around, gazing at all the green around me, a neighbor pointed out something above me in the canopy. An entire tree, about ten feet tall, had been picked up by the wind and dropped into the canopy of another, hanging perilously above me. I shuffled aside.
Later that morning I went to visit my friends Liz and Joe, who lived about fifteen minutes away on foot. By then the quiet had lifted. Power trucks and a few residential cars had begun to take to the roads. The haze had lifted too, but it had left an emotional numbness. It still persists.
November
It felt wrong to even be working that Wednesday. I was about to join a video call, and I would need to pretend that work was my sole focus, that nothing in the world or my personal life mattered right then.
I don’t think I faked it well.
I went to bed the previous night thinking the election results would be contested, that it would be close, that it would drag on for weeks or months, perhaps even until Inauguration Day.
That it would be a Trump landslide didn’t even occur to me.
So I pretended to care about work, and did my best to actually do something, until the end of the day. The backbiting and circular firing squads among the left that happen after every Republican win started up again. I remembered how I felt the last time Trump won, and how close the sniping and blame pushed me to self-harm.
So a few days later I took up bullet journaling again. I dug out a branded notebook (given out at a work conference) and went through the motions. It was an excuse to spend time away from my phone, a little bit of respite from the churn of news and scandal that were about to erupt yet again.
My past forays into bullet journaling have usually failed within a couple months, but this time it seems to have stuck. It used to feel like a chore, but now it feels more like a refuge.
All I know of next year is that it will be turbulent for all of us, and dangerous for many. The world feels much darker.
I hope we can all find refuge: in comforting places, in ritual whether secular or spiritual, in people we love and trust.