It seems we have reached the end of another year. Looking back on these 365 days, I am joined by the usual companions––nostalgia for the good things now gone, sadness that they are all over, and hope that there will be more of them in the year ahead.
It is tempting to classify a year as either "good" or "bad," but as I reflect on this one, all I can say is that it was long, and it was weird. The seemingly interminable duration is perhaps the weirdest part––most of the years of my adult life have positively zipped by, but not this one. Things that happened two years ago seem as though they just took place, but things that happened in February feel lifetimes ago. It has just been so long, like four years' time crammed into twelve months. At times, it has been good, sometimes bad. There have been hard things and fun things, moments mundane and thrilling in turn.
Really, isn't that just how life works? Its joys and sorrows are conjoined twins, separated only by death, and so we must take both together.
For me, this year was so full: students to welcome, recipes to try, loved ones to host, books to read, papers to grade and write, trips to take, deaths to mourn, babies to welcome, life to live. Now it is over, and the things that filled it are all memories.
So, I suppose, goes a life. Years are merely the way we measure and divide it. Since the boundary between one and the next is rather arbitrary, there seems to be little reason to label one year good or bad. The good is in the bad, and the bad can never cancel out all the good. We must, year by year, learn to be grateful for both.
Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of December.
What I Read
Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance, Kenneth Silverman (★★★)
Dear Mrs. Bird, A.J. Pearce (★★★★★)––reread
Yours Cheerfully, A.J. Pearce (★★★★)
The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green (★★★★★)
If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.
What I Cooked
I would like it to be noted before I begin this review that I am in fact capable of making pudding from scratch. When my initial plan for a fancy-ish, gluten-free dessert for my in-laws' family Christmas gathering fell through, I determined to make pudding.
I'm not 100% sure what to blame my failure on (the sleek yet underpowered stove in our Airbnb and a poor job of tempering the egg yolks, which should not have been mixed with cornstarch no matter what Sally swears by seem like the most logical scapegoats), but this poor pudding did not really work for me. It was too light, too loose, and too lumpy, although it did taste good enough that I'd be willing to give it another try.
What I Created
Unpublished original poem "God/Man"
Unpublished essay "Christmas in Minor Key"
I don't try to predict how a year will go, and I don't really set goals either. I try to just take it as it comes, and learn from whatever it gives me. Whatever you get from 2022, I hope it's something you can enjoy, but even if not, I hope it's something you can use.