2020! 364 days ago, I hoped this ocularly significant year would help the world see things straight. I was so, so wrong. Still, all was not lost. Consider this listicle of experiences that we never even considered, yet 2020 delivered

10. The aversion reflex. It is now socially acceptable, even commendable, to close your mouth and look away when passing someone on the sidewalk. How friendly!

9. The zig-zag. Of course, it’s better to simply cross to the other side of the street to avoid others, ricocheting like some toddler learning to navigate a first bicycle.

8. The moss munch. You know it’s time to change your mask when the inner lining turns all cotton-candy and infiltrates your mouth. Time for some entrepreneur developed flavored face masks.

7. Rules are for others. People at the hospital information desk yell at me why they’re special: exempt from wearing masks, demanding to eat in the cafeteria, insisting to visit contagious, vulnerable patients. Corollary: Rules are for losers. The most compliant people I encounter are low-level workers and people of color. The least compliant? Senior staff and white people. Just sayin.’

6. Walk, walk, walk. I have so much time on my hands I walk everywhere. 268 straight days over 10,000 steps. Will I be able to keep it up through the winter to reach a full year?

5. Zoom seminars are terrific. Without geographical constraint, I attend BLM meetings with Aware-LA was easily as SURJ Boston. Hear speakers from the National Constitution Center as easily as Cambridge Forum. Corollary: Zoom social events are terrible. Enough said.

4. Sanity is a basement workshop. So far I’ve made beehives, planters, protest signs, and shelves. Next up: a Little Free Library for my front yard.

3. Take a Knee, meet your neighbor. Six months into our nightly vigil since George Floyd died, I am no better at meditating. But it’s important to me to bear witness, and I enjoy neighbors I had never met before.

2. Spider Solitaire. Totally addicted!

1. That’s all folks! This year has been such a downer, no way there are actually ten good things to say about it.

Here’s hoping health and contentment to all in 2021.