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Monthly Archives: January 2017

A Letter to the President, Signed by Three Million

27 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by SaraS in Politics

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Women's March

This isn’t the sort of thing I usually do. I’ve never gone to protests. And yet, here we are, boarding a charter bus on the Eastside with a group of total strangers, on our way to Judkins Park in Seattle, with no idea what to expect.


We only decided to attend the Seattle Women’s March the weekend before. Back during our Christmas visit to Missoula, our friends talked about their plans to go to the march in Helena and we brushed it off, skeptical it would do any good. And again — protests aren’t usually my thing.

Then the Sunday before the march, I read a brief item in the paper about it, and the crowd they expected. And a good friend from Missoula emailed us some information about the march (and transportation options) from her contacts in Puget Sound.

Something just clicked.

“You know, we should go to this march next Saturday,” I said to Renee. I expected her to initially say no. I started thinking of how to present the case.

“Yes,” she said, no hesitation. “How do we get there?”

I started investigating transportation options. I found a group chartering buses from the Eastside but they were already full with 850 people. But that organizer let me know when another bus opened up (a bit farther from home). I made reservations and spent the rest of the week alternating between excitement and apprehension.


We arrive at the park and ride for the bus with time to spare, despite a Siri mishap that sent us the wrong way. Women with pink hats are gathered waiting for city buses. We spot a small shuttle bus across the lot and (correctly) guess that it is our ride.

More people gather at the bus, including a group of seven that drove down from Monroe. They load signs in the back. They pass out extra pink “pussyhats”. I had somehow missed the whole hat project in the pre-march media, but I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered since I do not sew, knit, or crochet. I’m grateful to the woman who made extras, even if the hat is a little too tight on my head.

Pink isn’t really my thing. Silly hats with cat ears aren’t my thing. Protests aren’t my thing. But, here we are, on a bus to a protest, wearing a pink hat with cat ears.

It turns out the bus has two empty seats due to some last minute cancelations. One of the organizers rushes out to offer them to a woman on crutches who was about to board a city bus with her daughter. “You’re my new best friends,” she says as she settles in her seat. I remember walking on crutches after foot surgery in 2012 and admire her determination to participate in a 3+ mile march.

The bus driver is a young man, friendly, helpful. He offers to take pictures of our group with the bus. We finally get underway.

On a bus with people I just met five minutes ago, in mostly-matching homemade hats

On a bus with people I just met five minutes ago, in mostly-matching homemade hats


The Monday before the march (Martin Luther King day, actually), I started thinking that I really needed to figure out my thoughts on this march before it took place. Where exactly am I politically? What did I hope to accomplish? Were we going just as a form of catharsis? Did we hope to make a difference?

I imagined myself, for a moment, discussing this march with someone unsupportive, someone who would dismiss this as just the whining of sore losers. How would I answer that person?


The bus pulls up to Judkins park just a bit after 9. We have plenty of time. Our group on the bus attempts to organize a bit, swapping phone numbers so that the organizer Janice can text us with details about where to meet the bus at the end of the day.

The sky spits out a few sprinkles of rain as we wait in line at the port-a-potties and then wander across the field towards the stage. I start noticing all the different signs. Sort of like the pink hats, it didn’t occur to me to come up with a sign to carry.

It is early, so the park still has lots of empty space. We find good spots to wait, up relatively close to the stage. We wait, take pictures, dance to music pouring out of the speakers, and notice the park slowly filling with more and more people. I attempt to text a few photos to our friends in Montana on their way to the Helena march, but the texts won’t go through. Too much traffic.

Only a few people here so far

Only a few people here so far

The rain clears up. We entertain ourselves while we wait by looking for clever signs. I find myself amazed at all the different people, ranging from children to men and women older than my parents.

Never piss off the grannies!

Never piss off the grannies!

I love this one. Also, note the phone in the bottom of the frame...

I love this one. Also, note the phone in the bottom of the frame…

I love both of these quotes.

I love both of these quotes.

The park continues to fill. The crowd now stretches across the park and up the slope we walked down when we arrived. There are announcements about a missing child (ten years old, wearing a pink hat — not a terribly useful description here). The crowd quiets for a moment, then cheers when she is found.

I am amazed how comfortable and relaxed I feel in this crowd. I can’t quite pinpoint my own mood, or the mood of the crowd. “Joy” isn’t the right word, given why we are here. But people are smiling. I start to wonder if the pre-march estimates I read in that newspaper article — 50,000 or so expected — were perhaps a bit low.

At last, the program begins with a moment of silence, followed by a reading of Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. More short talks. Calls to action. References to the many organizations that need volunteers. Finally, instructions for exiting the park. Exhortations to be patient as we make our way out of the park and onto the street.

The crowd begins to slowly migrate to the park exits. It is agonizingly slow — take a few steps, stop, take a few, stop.

Just as we finally exit the park -- looking back down at the crowd behind us.

Just as we finally exit the park — looking back down at the crowd behind us.


As I thought through my reasons for going to the Women’s March, I kept hearing the chorus of people on the right yelling “he won, get over it, you’re just a sore loser!” I could picture these people reacting to the march with the same words. “Why are you marching? You lost, go home, get over it!”

There seems to be this strange idea that politics and the presidency is sort of like a football game. Someone wins, someone loses, and that’s it. The winner gets a trophy and everyone goes home until next time. You might be disappointed, but you lost, it’s over, now shut up and go away. You don’t have a say anymore.

But of course, that isn’t how it works. Trump’s win doesn’t mean I’m required to reverse all my positions on how this country should work. I’m not going to decide that health care for all is a bad idea. I’m not going to agree that my legal marriage to Renee should be invalidated, or decide I’ve been mistaken about women’s rights all this time. I’m not going to reverse my opinion on public land and wilderness and sign on to selling it off. I’m not going to finally agree that all those climate scientists really are part of a Chinese hoax.

In other words, my ideas for what makes a good government may have lost in the Electoral College, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon those ideas.

The country elected a president, not a king. Those of us unhappy with this direction still have the freedom and the right to express our objections and advocate for what we believe is right. Doing so is not being a sore loser — it is being an American.

As this sign says, dissent is patriotic.

Yes, it is. And no, this is not from the Women's March. Rewind 8 years.

Yes, it is. And no, this is not from the Women’s March. Rewind 8 years.

Maybe this woman at a Tea Party protest in Nashville (February 27, 2009)  should remind the new president and the people running around in red caps that protesting has nothing to do with being a sore loser.


Eventually we are able to get into a more steady pace. I expect the crowd to thin out once we get up into the street, but that never happens. The people fill the street from curb to curb and spill out into the sidewalk for the entire march. I have no idea of the exact route, but trust we’ll be able to just follow the main crowd the whole way.

We hear a roar that, for a second, sounds like a jet engine. Then we realize it is the roar of the crowd in a “wave” coming from the front all the way to the back. This continues to happen during the entire route.

The landscape of people constantly changes. New signs, new people. All races, all ages. Many men, unafraid to join us with the pink hats. For a few minutes, we walk alongside a couple of women carrying Canadian flags. They confirm that they came to Seattle to show their support for the march.

About thirty minutes after escaping the park, two bald eagles circle overhead. Everyone around us stares and points cameras to the sky. Renee says, “I bet the eagles are wondering what we are all doing down here!”

We hold hands for most of the march, both for affection and so we won’t lose each other in the crowd.

Absolutely! If I wasn't here today, I might be at home reading a book...

Absolutely! If I wasn’t here today, I might be at home reading a book…


I admit I didn’t always see the point of protest, especially the ones that broke out right after the election. I wondered if the protesters had actually voted, and whether they had voted for the only candidate who had a chance to defeat Trump. What is the point of protest, anyway?

But then I reflected on my own life and what I value. My marriage to Renee, finally legal. My right as a woman to vote. The idea that all humans are, in fact, people. Including women.

So many changes in our world did not come about from polite political conversations. They came about because people stood up and said “this is what’s right,” even when those ideas were deeply unpopular, even when those ideas were not winning at the ballot box and were not championed by congress or the white house.

It didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen just because people protested in the streets. But the protests did matter.


Somewhere on Jackson street we realize we are not as near the front of the march as we thought. The road slopes very gently downhill towards Puget Sound. The street is a wide ribbon of shimmering color, as far down as I can see, and I realize it is a solid block of marchers. It looks almost as though they will reach the water, and I wonder how close we will get. I wish I had brought a better camera that could do this scene justice.

Couldn't get a great shot, but all you can see are people all the way down Jackson

Couldn’t get a great shot, but all you can see are people all the way down Jackson

People bump into each other, but no one gets upset. I step on someone’s heels, someone else brushes by — we all shrug and smile and keep on walking.

The endless sea of people behind us

The endless sea of people behind us

It is hard to find the right words to describe the mood of the crowd. Many of the signs are blunt and angry. But the people themselves — the women and men that surround us — don’t really seem angry. Defiant, yes. Unhappy with the new administration, definitely. But also exuberant to be here, together, flowing down the street as one. Some of the signs attempt to mix anger and frustration with humor: “I’m not usually a sign guy, but geez!” Or, “I can’t believe we still have to protest this shit!”

I grab pictures of these when I can, but they are a constant moving target, often bobbing out of view before I can pull out my phone.

It is uplifting to be here. Empowering. I keep thinking, over and over, I’m so glad we came. I’m so glad we get to be part of this.

Beautiful

Beautiful

Are we? I hope so.

Are we? I hope so.

We finally reach Fourth avenue and turn North. Tall downtown buildings come into view.

Heading north.

Heading north.

Yes, we are!

Yes, we are!

Then Westlake park, where women beat on metal drums and the crowd can spread out a bit. We’re finally in territory I know. Soon we pass the Cinerama. Their marquee shows signs and logos for the march instead of upcoming movies.

Now playing: Women's March!

Now playing: Women’s March!

At last we approach the Space Needle and pause for a selfie.

Almost done!

Then the Seattle Center, where we finally can sit down and rest until it is time to track down our bus home. We sit on the ledge of fountain and chat with another marcher resting from the walk. We speculate on the size — it sure seems larger than the anticipated 50,000. She tells us that marchers were arriving at the Seattle Center before everyone had left Judkins Park. The people filled the entire 3.5 mile route.

“It was astonishing,” she says.

Text messaging is still spotty. By some miracle we manage to find our shuttle bus and the same group we started with.

We compare notes; someone looks up news about all the other marches in other cities. We learn that the Seattle march was probably around 150,000, far more than expected. I begin to realize that we have been a part of something much bigger than we ever expected. And I feel more hope for the future of this country than I have since November.


When we decided to go to the march, I had no idea that we would be part of an enormous global event. After we got home, we watched the news and scrolled websites full of photos from around the world as the estimated numbers kept rising. We heard from our Montana friends, who marched in Helena where the turnout (estimated at 10,000) far exceeded expectations.

In the days since Saturday, there has been no shortage of articles and commentary about the marches. Some call it inspiring; some call it pointless. It was likely the largest protest in U.S history — how that can be “pointless” is beyond me.

I am well aware that spending one Saturday in January in a crowd of pink-hatted people won’t, on its own, change much in our world. It won’t magically undo the election that happened on November 8. It won’t make Trump release his tax returns, get rid of his advisor with white nationalist ties, or choose a less anti-LGBT cabinet. It won’t make him reconsider a health care law that saves lives. I know all this.

But it did send a message to the president (and his cabinet, his advisors, the GOP congress, all of their supporters) that we are not onboard with him or his agenda. It was a massive letter to the president, signed by three million angry, inspired, and energized women and men who are not going to shut up anytime soon.

In the days since the march, I’ve done more things I’ve never done before. The phone numbers for my members of congress are now in my phone. I’ve made a few calls (and I hate talking on the phone, so this is not nothing). These are small things, but still, they matter. And, more to come.

In other words, I guess I never really expected the march to change Donald Trump.

What I found is that it changed me.

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Thirty-One Books

08 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by SaraS in Books

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reading

Since it is the start of a new year, I wanted to do a quick post about all the books I read during 2016. The total number — 31 — seemed fewer than I expected, but actually more than I’ve read in a year during the last few years.

Writing about the books is also kind of fun because I get to revisit them — and most of the books I read this year were really good, so it is a good revisit!

Most of the books were fiction, with an emphasis on fantasy and science fiction. I did manage to squeeze in a few non-fiction works here and there. I also ended up immersed in multiple different series this year, so I’ve been left hanging, waiting for the next volumes to be published. This is a little unusual for me — in the past, I’ve managed to wait to start a series until most of the volumes were available, so I could just go from one to the next. Not so this time — I’m waiting on the sequels to Binti, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, The Obelisk Gate, and Oddfits. This wasn’t intentional; it is just how things happened with the books I picked up to read in 2016.

Alas, the sequel to The Obelisk Gate (The Stone Sky) is not coming out until August, so I have a long wait. The two books I read in that series were my absolute favorites of the year.

A few of these books were re-reads, but I still count them because the first time I read them was so long ago that I didn’t remember much.

Fiction

Twenty-five of the books this year were fiction. Ordered by title:

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. I think I read this way back in eighth grade, but I barely remembered anything. Wanted to revisit a classic.

2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke. This one I had never read before. Entertaining, but I wasn’t inspired to continue with the series.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor. This one was short and fairly quick to read. I picked it up because it won the Best Novella Hugo award this year, and I was not disappointed. I’ve already pre-ordered the sequel (Binti: Home), due out at the end of January.

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison. A novel taking place in post-apocalyptic world that is especially harsh towards women. The author wrote a post explaining the big idea behind the book, and in this case, her big idea was: women are people. If that seems obvious or not that impressive, I suggest you read her words here and think hard about how women are often portrayed in science fiction. This was a terrific book. I started it right at the beginning of November and finished sometime after the election, so its description of a post-apocalyptic world seemed particularly apt in the moment. The sequel, The Book of Etta, is due out in February…again, another pre-order for me.

The Broken Earth series by N. K. Jemisin — I read the first two books of this series:

  • The Fifth Season
  • The Obelisk Gate

These were incredible, and without a doubt my favorite books of the entire year. I picked up The Fifth Season because it won the Best Novel Hugo award this year. The way Jemisin tells the story is highly unusual — alternating between second person narration (“You are…“) and more typical narration, but somehow it works. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world roiled by earthquakes and volcanoes. A certain class of people are able to control these seismic events with their minds (“orogenes”), but instead of revering them, the “normal” people (the “stills”) fear, hate, and enslave them. Somehow the author managed to tell a story about oppression in an entirely unexpected and new way.

I finished the second volume (The Obelisk Gate) in late October. There is a passage in the book that has haunted me since I read it, especially given the real-life political climate. Without reading the full story it may be a little hard to fully understand the context. Essun is an orogene who has spent much of her life either enslaved or in hiding, but is currently living in a community (“comm”) where she is a full citizen and mostly considered to be human. Her comm must decide whether to join with another comm (“Rennanis”) at a high cost — Rennanis does not want the comm’s orogenes, so a significant segment of the comm would be cast out. There has already been some violence (some directed at children), as the comm members revive their hatred and fear of those who are different. The decision is supposed to be made by vote. There is a ballot box, and the community members are dropping in their ballots:

…
You walk into the center of the circle, and the man holding the ballot box scrambles back from you, leaving it there. Ykka frowns and steps forward and says, “Essun—” But you ignore her. You lunge forward and it is suddenly instinctual, easy, natural, to grip the hilt of the pink longknife with both hands and turn and swivel your hips and swing. The instant the sword touches the wooden box, the box is obliterated. It isn’t cut, it isn’t smashed; it disintegrates into its component microscopic particles. The eye processes this as dust, which scatters and glitters in the light before vanishing. Turned to stone. A lot of people are gasping or crying out, which means they’re inhaling their votes. Probably won’t hurt them. Much.

Then you turn and lift the longknife, pivoting slowly to point it at each face.

“No vote,” you say. It’s so quiet that you can hear water trickling out of the pipes in the communal pool, hundreds of feet below. “Leave. Go join Rennanis if they’ll have you. But if you stay, no part of this comm gets to decide that any other part of this comm is expendable. No voting on who gets to be people.”
…

That last bit just got me. “No voting on who gets to be people.”

Anyway, I very much recommend these books and I can’t wait for the third volume due out in August!

Deceptions: A Connor Hawthorne Mystery by Lauren Maddison. This was an older lesbian murder mystery, originally published back in 1999. It started out quite good, but then went a bit downhill when it introduced a villain that was pure caricature. I imagined him twirling his mustache and plotting world domination, like a cartoon character. I liked the main two characters, so I was a bit bummed that it just veered off into this weird, unsatisfying place. There are sequels with the same characters, but I’m not planning on reading them at the moment.

Gift of the Winter King by Naomi Kritzer. This was a collection of short stories that I picked up after reading Kritzer’s Hugo-winning short story Cat Pictures Please. Several really good stories, including some set in the same fantasy world as her novels, which are now on my “to read” list. I think my favorite story was St. Ailbe’s Hall, which effectively used dogs (talking dogs, even!) to show just how brutally awful humans can be.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne. So this one was a little odd, as it is the script for a play, not an actual novel. I like the overall story about Harry’s young son, but I wish Rowling had written this as a normal novel. Reading a script felt strange. It did go much faster than I imagine a novel-version of the story would have. I believe I finished it in just a few days during our camping trip in the Beartooth mountains.

His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman:

  • The Golden Compass
  • The Subtle Knife
  • The Amber Spyglass

The first two (The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife) were technically re-reads. I read them both back in 2008, but got sidetracked before moving on to book three. So since it had been so long, I started over and read the whole series.

After I finished the books, a vague memory prompted me to hunt around find some old book-journal type notes I had written when I read these books the first time. Apparently, the first time I wasn’t crazy about The Subtle Knife — I felt bogged down and it didn’t grab me as the first book. This second time, I really enjoyed the book. So, I guess reading tastes and perspectives can change quite a bit in eight years? I’ve become much more disciplined about journaling, particularly about the books I read, so it may be interesting to revisit some of this year’s books in, say, 2026 or so.

I was a little bummed when I finished these, as I really wanted to spend more time in Lyra’s world, where your soul takes the form of an animal “daemon” that is always by your side.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin. This one was technically a re-read, as I listened to the audio version many years ago (before moving to Montana, when I had a driving commute).

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. Also a re-read — I had read this one back in college, but I had forgotten most of it. This book is not really a true novel — it works more as a collection of short pieces that center around two Native American families and a huge collection of characters.

The Oddfits by Tiffany Tsao. The title of this one is quite appropriate — the book was odd, the story was odd, the characters were odd. I stumbled across this one because I get one free “kindle first” book a month through Amazon Prime. This was a sort of fantasy taking place in the “real world” in Singapore. Although it wasn’t as compelling as some of the other series I read this year, I’m still planning on picking up the sequel once it comes out (The More Known World, due out in August).

Slow River, by Nicola Griffith. Another one with an interesting story structure. The story centers on one main character, but uses three different points of view to tell her story (the author writes about how she came to this story structure here).

This is the second novel by Griffith that I’ve read (I read and loved Ammonite several years ago). She also was an editor for the anthology Bending the Landscape: Gay and Lesbian Science Fiction, which I bought in Chicago probably in the early 2000s and still go back to re-read from time to time.

The full Tales of the City series (9 books) by Armistead Maupin:

  • Tales of the City
  • More Tales of the City
  • Further Tales of the City
  • Babycakes
  • Significant Others
  • Sure Of You
  • Michael Tolliver Lives
  • Mary Ann in Autumn
  • The Days of Anna Madrigal

I wanted to read the last two novels in this series, but figured it has been a long time since I read the others, so I should catch up first. So I re-read them all over a few weeks in the middle of summer. These are also a very quick read, very entertaining, although I do have to say, the early volumes feel pretty dated now. I’m sure I miss a lot of the San Francisco in-jokes as well, but they were still fun to re-read.

Non-fiction

I read just six non-fiction books this year, but they were all good:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Enlightening and heartbreaking.

The Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik. This is another one I read during our camping vacation in the summer. In particular, I really liked the portions where they presented parts of her court opinions and dissents with analysis. Reading this book in the summer, I did expect a different election outcome and the idea that perhaps she would retire. Now I’m wondering if RBG can stick it out another four years…

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West. Another in the handful of non-fiction I read this year. Lindy West can be hysterical, so there was a lot of humor in this one, although at the same time, reading about the abuse and harassment imposed on women online was infuriating. Interestingly, just in the last week, Lindy West has left Twitter:

”Twitter, for the past five years, has been a machine where I put in unpaid work and tension headaches come out. I write jokes there for free. I post political commentary for free. I answer questions for free. I teach feminism 101 for free. Off Twitter, these are all things by which I make my living – in fact, they comprise the totality of my income. But on Twitter, I do them pro bono and, in return, I am micromanaged in real time by strangers; neo-Nazis mine my personal life for vulnerabilities to exploit; and men enjoy unfettered, direct access to my brain so they can inform me, for the thousandth time, that they would gladly rape me if I weren’t so fat.”

The Way Of The Heathen: Practicing Atheism In Everyday Life by Greta Cristina. Another fairly quickly read. This book consisted of several essays, some of which I had previously read on the author’s blog, but it was nice to have them collected together in one volume.

Writing A Novel with Ulysses by David Hewson. Ulysses is the app I currently use for all sorts of personal writing on both my Mac and iPhone/iPad. I picked up this book even though I don’t have any immediate plans to attempt a novel right now. I do have a terrible, not-fully-finished draft of a novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo back in 2011 that I occasionally consider revisiting, so this seemed like it might be useful.

Writing: A User Manual: A practical guide to planning, starting and finishing a novel by David Hewson. What can I say? I like reading advice about writing. It is probably a bad habit — should spend more time actually writing and less time reading about writing. Maybe I’ll do better in 2017.

2017

I’d like to increase the number of books I read in a year, so I’m aiming to hit about 45 in 2017. This may be a bit ambitious. I can’t remember a year in which I read that many books, but I’m looking forward to trying!

I’ve already checked my first of 2017 off my list: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. I started reading it during the holidays, and then it nearly made me miss by bus stop a couple times once I went back to work.

My kindle is currently full of books and samples for books that I’ve been adding to my list — there are more “I want to read this” books on my list than I’m ever going to finish, so maybe this is an achievable goal. Some that come to mind that I’ve been wanting to read:

  • Hild by Nicola Griffith
  • The Book of Etta by Meg Elison
  • Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor
  • The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin
  • Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago by Octavia Butler (I started on Dawn before the holidays, then got sidetracked with Between the World and Me. I do want to get back to this series at some point.)
  • Emperor of the Eight Islands: Book 1 in the Tale of Shikanoko by Lian Hearn. (I’m curious about this one — years ago I read the Tales of the Otori series by this author and loved it, so I added this to my list.)
  • Fires of the Faithful by Naomi Kritzer
  • Lock In: A Novel of the Near Future by John Scalzi (I’ve read several of his science fiction books, and I love his blog. I read a short story based in the world of Lock In and found it interesting)

There are a ton more — this is just a start. We’ll see what I have to write about in January 2018!

My 2016 in Six Minutes

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by SaraS in Memories, Videos

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video

For the third year in a row, I’ve made a “One Second Every Day” video. The concept is simple (and easy to do with an app on my phone) — record video or take photos every day of the year. For each day, select a single second of video (or pick a still photo). Then, “mash” them all together into a continuous video. The 1SE app handles all of this part. I add the music separately using iMovie.

Here is my video for 2016:

Music

Other than remembering to record video every day, choosing the music is the hardest part about creating these. I always feel like I’m picking a soundtrack for the year.

This year was especially difficult. We lost Xena, our 18-year old Siamese cat, back in January. Then we lost Cricket, our rat terrier mix, in October. Finally, the presidential election was in November, with a result that I did not expect and am not at all happy about.

October and November is when I usually start playing around with the seconds I’ve saved so far and experimenting with songs that might work with the video. So my initial song candidates were quite a bit less positive and sadder than the two I did finally choose. I had to remind myself that the year was bigger than our losses.

Renee actually helped find the second song — “Sing On,” by Jewel. I felt it fit well because it is optimistic, while at the same time suggesting that some things might be a struggle.

Past Years

The first year I did this, I was sort of sneaky and did not tell Renee about it. I started about a week into 2014, so the early parts of that video showed some of her brain surgery recovery. That video also reflected huge life changes for us — a new job, moving, a new house, adjusting to commuting by bus, and so on.

Last year I did another video, but just posted it to YouTube and Facebook without doing a blog post. That year seemed uneventful compared to 2014.

Here are those past videos:

2015:

2014

2017

I am hoping that my 2017 in Six Minutes video will document a good year for us. Renee should be finishing school and getting into more interesting work at her new job. I’ll continue doing work I enjoy in my current job. We have plans to visit Glacier National Park this summer with friends. We will keep making progress with the formerly-feral kitten Canyon — maybe she’ll even be willing to get in a lap someday! The dogs and cats (and us!) will (hopefully) stay healthy.

But when I started this project back in 2014, I had no idea I would be documenting a move to a new house in a new state with a completely different sort of job. When I started recording last January first (the shot of Canyon checking out the bedroom dresser), I didn’t know we’d be saying good bye to both Xena and Cricket by the end of the year.

Which is just another way of acknowledging that no one knows what the future — and specifically 2017 — will look like.

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