Friends,
Hello, and welcome to Unpacking. Doesn’t our last newsletter feel like ages ago? This week was loooooong. This leads us to the subject for today: hanging on, pandemic-style.
In mainstream America, the final weeks of December are crunchtime. We’re all hustling to make our end-of-year goals while dealing with added expectations around the holidays. Students have final exams. Some workers have performance reviews. We all have our own personal reviews, too: How did this year go? Where did we expect to go, and where did we actually end up?
This year, of course, is different. Not only are we tired in a typical end-of-year way, but we’re also burned out after nine months of a global pandemic and the current spike in covid cases. In our highly scientific Carrie & Emily™ anecdotal surveys, people are simply bone-tired. Take it from the headline of one of our favorite newsletters, The 19th’s daily.
The question becomes: How are we holding on?
We’re thinking about the concept of equanimity, as it is taught in meditation and framed eloquently in this essay, as non-reactivity. So, yes, we’re super tired and don’t feel like doing fill-in-the-blank activity. And, we also know that we need to do fill-in-the-blank activity. So, rather than one or the other, we’re trying to hold space for both things to be true. We’re trying to channel some equanimity vibes.
Plus, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We are at *the end of the beginning* (h/t to Winston Churchill), with the first vaccines administered in the U.S. earlier this week. Still, we know the tunnel is still a tough place to be.
And so … Behold! We’ve compiled a list of things we’re doing to make it through the final stretch of 2020, pandemic-style.
Emily:
Daydreaming: Pushing through work with grand visions of doing nothing and not looking at screens next week and beyond.
Mixing coffee with hot chocolate: Need I say more?
Carrie:
Poetry: It’s nice to get out of the rational space and into a more amorphous, emotive one. This is on-point, by John O’Donohue: For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing
The original *socially distant* form of holiday greetings: The value of snail mail, especially cards with photos of cute babies, animals, and people I love, cannot be understated.
Water cooler convo
Carrie: Sad Christmas songs are ringing true this year. Look no further than “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which has survived revisions galore, and this recording of “In the Bleak Mid-Winter,” which is gorgeous.
Emily: It’s funny you say that because my husband, Greg, has also been into the melancholy Xmas songs. Here are the songs I now hear everyday: Joni Mitchell’s "River," Coldplay’s "Christmas Lights," and Sufjan Stevens’ "O Come O Come Emmanuel.”
Carrie: Hard pivot here … it’s hard to escape the feeling that this needs to be discussed: Motherhood in America Is a MultiLevel Marketing Scheme.
Emily: I am obsessed with MLMs. There’s one woman I follow on Insta who claims to make “multi-six figures a year” from selling water filtration devices. I just really need to know if that’s true and how and why. Where are you, ProPublica?!
Emily: Also, MacKenzie Scott is on my mind. Not only did she give away $4.2 billion in the last few months, but she’s giving a lot of these as unrestricted gifts AND giving the funds to schools where she doesn’t have a personal connection. Can all other billionaires please take note?!
Carrie: You know who should be a billionaire? Yo-Yo Ma. More music, better health. I’m into this at the moment.
And, on that note, that’s a wrap for 2020! Thanks for taking part in our experimental newsletter. Ideas for next year? Shoot us a note at newsletterwizards@gmail.com or respond directly to this email.
Catch you in 2021!
Your newslettering pals,
Carrie & Emily