Happy New Year
Here's to good fortune and health in 2021...
This day last year, it dawned on me that the decade we were about to mark the passing of had been a particularly challenging one for me. And it had been defined, most of all, by change. Change of circumstance, change of job, change of life partner, change of lifestyle, change of friends. Where I ended up on 31 December, 2019, was not at all where I had thought — or hoped — I would be, had I thought about it — on 31 Dec 2009. I wrote a Facebook post, looking back on everything I had been through, and overall felt as though I could wear my battle scars with pride.
Then came COVID, and suddenly change came to everyone. Isolation, dashed plans, stalled careers, financial destruction, separation from dear ones, that became the norm. I had lived through it all already.
2020 was a terrible year for many. But by the time it had arrived, I had already done so much grieving I was ready to move to the next phase.
This is my next phase.
When I was a little girl, I watched my father tap tap tap away on his typewriter, writing book after book, article after article, and I thought it looked like the worst job ever. It was lonely, and never finished, and it was filled with anxiety and financial insecurity. I swore I would NEVER be a writer.
2020 was the year I finally matured away from 7 year old Jenny. So for that, I’m grateful. I’m also grateful that in January 2020 I moved to a beautiful part of the world where I was not confined by city streets and small apartments; where I had access to sea air and green fields; where my partner and I had a chance to reconnect after spending the prior two years running a food business together; and where my son could sprout up in as free a way as is possible nowadays. I’m grateful that I was able to do lockdown-lifestyle things like perfect a sourdough bread recipe.
But I’m most grateful that 2020 put in my path a small and random group of people who, just out of the blue, got in touch with me and told me what I secretly had known - and those closest to me had pointed out - for some time: I needed to start writing.
While I have a lot of gratitude for the ways in which I have been one of the lucky ones this year, I am also deeply concerned at the direction we’ve taken in the last 10 months, following years of illiberal liberals dominating everything. So my writing will focus on the space where politics and culture meet, as well as personal reflection because the 1960’s feminists were right about one thing: the personal is political. I have come to believe that the two things (our personalities and our politics) are so intertwined they make up, within each of us, a Gordian knot.
Oh, and food. I’ll be writing about that too, because cooking and eating are my only hobbies.
If you are reading this as the midnight moment approaches, in the chill of solitude, or, like Seamus Heaney’s Servant Boy, “wintering out/the back-end of a bad year/swinging a hurricane lamp in some outhouse;” if you feel like you could use some joy — then I suggest you hit play on this little number.
I will be updating this page once a week, if you care to follow my thoughts then hit the subscribe button below. And Happy New Year!