Connection

Merry Connectedness

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For our family, 2025 has been an odd and, mostly, wonderful year. There has been loss, but most of the twists and turns have, ultimately, brought us closer to the people we care about. Last night, as we moved more firmly into a new holiday tradition, celebrating Christmas Eve at a restaurant with our sons and their significant others, 2025 brought us a blessed connectedness.

In July, we left Vermont for a shoreline town in Connecticut. The move put my husband and me closer to siblings at a time when all of us are watching our chicks fly the nest (or in our case, the coop). We lost a family member in August and grieved. By Thanksgiving, accepting the realities of having adult children with their own lives, we also realized that the traditions we’ve had aren’t dying. They are, however, part of a different time in our lives that is receding into the past. In their place, new routines that will become traditions are beginning emerge. New or old, the traditions share the common purpose of connecting our family even as it shrinks and then grows again.

I am ever aware of the impact of current events on families around the country and the world. That awareness drives every bit of my professional life this year, solidifying my “why,” which is grounded in the idea that all children should be educated, healthy, and safe. As I sat with the two most important “children” in my life last night, however, I remembered where that “why” really began.

I am quite possibly the least religious person in our family. The only fiber of faith in my life is the eternal gratitude I feel for having Thing1 and Thing2 (They will always be Thing1 and Thing2) come into my life. They gave our lives perspective and meaning. They gave me a “why” that forms the purpose for my second and third acts. Last night, as we gathered at a cozy restaurant in Cambridge, MA, and watched our sons banter with their significant others, I knew we were making a new tradition. It’s the evolution of the gatherings the Big Guy and I have had on the same day with our great-grandparents and grandparents and parents and children for the past half-century. It’s the evolution of our connections, and for me, it’s become a sacred thing.

So, however you spend this time of year when the Northern Hemisphere is at its darkest and just starting to get brighter, I hope some Merry Connectedness finds its way to you.

The Opposite of Sick

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I tested positive for Covid on Monday which wasn’t a huge deal (we’re all vaxxed and boosted, the symptoms are mild) but it was hugely inconvenient — until the break it enforced helped me find a needed change to disturb this winter’s rest.

Ordinarily, getting an extra week off right before spring break would have been lovely, but Constant vertigo is a fog. It’s an exhausting, involuntary hangover that turns a successful trip from my desk to the copier or kitchen to couch into an Olympic event. Almost daily Ménière’s attacks have sent me home so often that the word “disability” has been floated by doctors more times than I care to count.

The fog also clouds my identity. I feel like less of a mother, less of a teacher, and nothing like an artist. It was started to convince me that art was just a phase of my life that’s over.

A few weeks ago, my sister who had recently moved into a new house, texted looking for matches for framed photos I’d done a decade ago when I was still shooting weddings and portraits. I’d pooh-poohed my photos for a few years as I started drawing again. As I scanned dusty archives for a mate for this rose or that apple blossom, however, I remembered how much I enjoyed making them.

Yesterday, as I sat in the cool spring sun, the cats meditated on the chickadees swarming the budding lilacs. The dog lazed on the grass, occasionally lifting her head when she sensed a deer in the pasture beyond our woods. The spring sun warmed the wind and, for once, the rocking in my head made me feel closer with the rhythm around me.

I got up for a walk around the house, stopping to chat with the cats and dog who followed close behind. I examined branches, looking for incoming blossoms and studied the muddy mess that is my veggie garden after winter. My phone came out of my pocket and, almost mindlessly, I started to snap as I ambled, merging with the buds and even the puddles.

When my head started spinning last November, I felt myself detaching from work and life and, I thought, from art. But, as I snapped a branch or a racing kitty, I realized I can’t disconnect from art. Some people use art to comment on the world. Art helps me connect with it. It often helps me when I don’t expect but need it the most.

People talk about addiction as an illness, and it is, but a wise person in one of my classes once said that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. I think that’s true with illness as well — the opposite of sickness isn’t a perfectly functioning body, it’s a life that’s still connected. Yesterday, for me, art — even in the form of blurry photos – was the opposite of my disease.