I think most of us would agree that this is a December unlike any other. For the first time in forever I will be locked down at home instead of in San Diego for Christmas with grandkids — so many Americans will be quarantined as well, lonely for family. I am grieving my sister, who was taken out by cancer, but I cannot ask my friends for hugs. I watch in horror as Covid death numbers rocket through the stratosphere in the US. I worry myself sick about my daughter’s family. I watch politicians deny and subvert the truth. It’s like trying to breathe after having been swept off the mountain by an avalanche, crushed under eight feet of snow.

And yet. Small treasures keep my focus on the glory of just being alive today. Bike rides to Crab Cove to meet a kind and warm friend and together watching leggy black-necked stilts at the water’s edge (I looked them up!). Spicy, hammy bean soup in the crock pot. Getting out my tray of watercolors and painting this persimmon I set up on a flowery napkin I lifted from Uncle Fuzzy’s kitchen. Doing mindless chores like laundry which soothes me. Celebrating my health. Drinking my sister’s favorite brand of tea I ordered on Amazon, brewed in the little metal teapot she used every morning that her wonderful husband mailed to me. Netflix series about spies in WWII. Green herons out my kitchen window. Inhaling fabulous apple-cranberry homemade pie a friend made. Marveling at the hopeful news of vaccines. Dancing lights on my ceiling, reflections from the water outside my boat. Finches fighting at the birdfeeder. These are small slices of life that keep me from being squished, giving me a breathing tube that reaches up through the suffocation of snow into fresh air. I know I am quite sturdy, all-in-all, but Jesus, Mary and the Pips what a year.

7″ x 10″ watercolor, pen on paper = $90