Sally Huggins Toner

Mark makes fun of the way I stalk my family on Find My Friends (those who have accepted my request, and if you’ve forgotten doing that, Fam, you never read this). I’ll often check it before I go up to read and go to sleep, making sure everyone is tucked snug into their respective beds—in places that now span from Reston to Staunton, San Pancho, New Haven, San Diego. Our clan is what you might call moving targets, and Christmas this year illuminated just that.

We ended up spending Christmas Eve in a hotel in my hometown. Long story, involving, you guessed it, COVID. The upshot is we are all healthy now and were able to bring the entire extended family together for the first time in two years. So there’s that.

To be honest, there was something cool about being a tourist on my own turf. Walking downtown, listening to our oldest extolling the virtues of the jewel of the Shenandoah Valley to her fiancé—pointing out a building for lease where she suggested they could open the Toner-Cao School of Music—that was a joyful moment. One of many I’ve had this holiday season.

Of course, there have been not-so-joyful moments as well—illnesses, injuries, anxiety, tough decisions with no clear answers. I keep coming back to this idea of place, location, though. So that’s the topic of this New Year’s Eve blog post: Where are we? And how hard is the waiting?

When I open Find My Friends, each family member is represented by a photo marking a separate place and time. Mark is a dark silhouette against a sunny, cumulous mountaintop in Big Sky North Dakota. He was there on a business trip almost twenty years ago. Sara is seven, wearing her pink pea coat, jaunty grey cloche, and matching Latin Quarter smile.  Aimee is in Arlington, about six months old, viewed from the back of her brightly colored stroller. You can just see her head shadowed in profile, and her long baby hair fuzz sticks straight up to catch the afternoon light. It eventually fell over to cover her head like a field of dandelions. From my own phone, I am a pulsing blue dot, completely in the present. All of these images are iconic, from different points of reference.

Different points of reference—where I feel we all are as we close out 2021. When we zoom in, we can only see what’s right next to us. When we zoom out, everyone appears closer to one another. That can be comforting, but we become overwhelmed when people and events overlap. I don’t need to rehash the state of the world here. Just turn on the news or go on Twitter. It’s all so much.

Oh, and this afternoon, as if this year is offering us a final “f-you”….BETTY WHITE!

Still, 2021 has seen some happy stops too. Our blue dots have pulsed over new homes, marriages, births, new creative opportunities. They still happened. Yes, many things ended in 2021, but many began as well.

Mind you, I’m not going to Pollyanna this shit. There’s much that’s been hard, and much that will be. I also refuse to discount my own privilege. It’s been, and will continue to be, so much easier for me than it is for so many others.

But just for today, I’ve decided to look at what IS—right now—at 4:30 on December 31, 2021.

Right now, Find Me.

I am 51. Five years ago, as I awaited biopsy results, if someone could have guaranteed me I’d be here to write this today, I’d have dropped to my knees.

I baked bread for dinner. I used the Poolish method, and, if you haven’t tried it and are willing to be patient, you should. It’s worth it. Oh yeah, patience. There’s that.

And speaking of dinner, it’ll just be me, my cat, and my husband of 28 years. Thanks to Omicron, other plans fell through. But we’ll have pork scallopini and black-eyed peas and greens like my mom always taught me to do. We’ll HOPEFULLY watch Georgia beat Michigan in the Peach Bowl. Mark’s going to set up a firepit, and we might stay up to watch the ball drop.

Wait, I’m already thinking too far ahead. Right now, I’m sitting at my counter wishing everyone a Happy New Year. The song I’ve chosen to close out of 2021 is Bruce Springsteen’s “If I Should Fall Behind.” It was released in 1992, 30 years ago, from his album Lucky Town. It’s a reminder to appreciate everyone, to try to meet them in their place, and to offer them, and ourselves, grace—wherever on the map we happen to be.