Hello, friend. It is the last day of the year & I have a fe…

new projects & new home businesses. Some of you became homeschool teachers, & others became primary caregivers. You learned to bake, cook, clean, shop online, & manage your way through Zoom. You did so much & because we were all "In it", no one really was available to shout your

praises. Well, I am. You are awesome. You stayed being a good friend, even when you told your friends you would not gather. You constantly told friends & relatives to wear a mask, social distance, wash hands, don't gather - even when they no longer wanted to hear that message.

And you know what? You worked part-time to help elect your primary candidate & then most of us had to switch to supporting a different person but you rallied for the good of.. all of us, & you phone banked, texted, attended zooms, & gave money to get Biden/Harris elected. I know

you also struggled w/loneliness, grieved deaths, broke up, argued, became depressed, missed sleep, stopped exercising, & retreated from.. life. That is okay. You are okay. As my Teenlet said in all your youthful wisdom: Daddy, these are the days we will be talking about forever

.."so I am paying attention so I remember..everything." Ah, youth who want to remember everything when as adults there are things we know we never want to think about again. But the hope of youth is the memory joy of the aged. 2020 was hard on all of us. As it was for essential

workers & front line workers. We see them & you are warm and polite, not demanding. You say please & thank you, and you smile big behind your mask because you want your smile's energy to reach the worker. They receive it, too. You know they do. American society doesn't allow us

to say to strangers "I love you" even though we do. We express it w/gratitude, big tips, please & thank you and, yes, our mask-covered smiles. Be that person again in the coming year. We hear of the banality of evil, but the banality of kindness is more powerful. You know it is.

President Joe is interesting, funny, smart, empathetic, and boring. Like many of our parents, grandparents, older mentors. MVP Harris is interesting, funny, smart, and sparks so much joy we can hardly contain our joyful responses. We find reasons to be *extra proud of her

she & are the same age, born in same hospital in Oakland, just a couple months apart. See? I feel pride about that. You have yours, too. 2020 is done, but you are not. You have more to do, more to give, more to accomplish. And yes, more to lose. We all do. And our accomplishments

and are loses are felt and shared by our little invisible online community of friends who offer kind words, celebratory memes & gifs, and even a secret DM or two to say extra kind words. Invisible but producers of tangible moments of pure joy & laugher. We have challenges ahead

ahead, as always, & we will power through. Not alone, but with the known and unknown well wishes of so many. Some pray, some meditate, some manifest, some study the stars for us, and some reach out to the ancestors, some to God, Allah, The Goddess, the Universe, or internal

powers. Or all of the above or none. You will do it because you did it before and the world needs the eternal optimists, the boring, the bland, the standard, the average, the you and the me.

As Kamala said to Joe on the phone that day:

"We did it. You did it. We made it." End