So, that 2020 huh? I
guess no one really saw that coming. I
certainly could not have guessed in January that my spring and early summer
would look like this. It’s funny now to
recall sitting in a coffee shop on a cold January morning in Greenville typing out
the draft that would become my first blog post of the year. In it, I listed 7 goals for myself for this
year and mentioned that I’d try to remember to check in a few times to let you know
how it was going. Well, it’s now
mid-June. I guess we better get to it.
I know you don’t want to scroll back through the posts any
more than I did, so I’ll quickly remind you of my 7 goals for 2020:
-Exercise every day
-Practice gratitude
-Sketch/Write in my sketchbook every day
-Eat better
-Get in exhibits
-Read every day
-Choose positivity
I’ve heard that a man’s (or woman’s) character is not tested
when things are easy, but rather when they become difficult. I consider these goals reasonable but I think
they would have been challenging in a year when things went smoothly. And it’s true that even in the early weeks of
working towards meeting these goals, I encountered some difficulty. Maybe that’s a good way to address this check-up,
by breaking it down into “before trouble” and “during trouble”.
Before Trouble
Let’s call January to the first week in March “before
trouble”. I seem to recall the threat of
what the social media birds were calling “World War III” during those weeks,
but otherwise there was mostly just the normal amount of politics and civil
unrest. My life was moving along with
the start of a spring semester and I was working hard at work and at being an
artist. I was actually finding a groove
creatively and I was managing to carve out a sizeable chunk of time each week
to produce new drawings. School was also
going well. I was handling the things
within my control as well as possible and my students were thriving. Life was good.
I was managing to exercise (PIYO) about 4 times per week
which was not exactly what I was hoping for in the beginning, but with the
school schedule, it was what I could manage.
I was running every day and I was even steadily increasing my distance
running in preparation for running a half marathon in March. Each week I added a mile to my run right up
until the half marathon, which I was lucky to complete just before everything
started to be canceled. The gratitude
book was in daily use and I was jotting down my thankful thoughts every
morning. I don’t think I missed any days
during this “before trouble” period. I
wasn’t doing as great with the sketching/writing in my sketchbook every
day. I would miss a day here and there,
but the routine was being established. I
was eating better by watching the amount of sweets I was eating and working to
consciously eat less fried foods and more vegetables. I was also working toward entering some
exhibits. There was a small batch of "calls for art" during the latter part of this time and I was making work to
enter. I was reading every day, either
in the Bible, a bedside book, or online and doing very well with that. And I was choosing positivity with a good
deal of success. I know this because I
saw some changes in my immediate world with student interactions and my own emotions
were much more positive as a result. I
was letting go of things I couldn’t control and trying to be at peace with
them. I was smiling, encouraging, and
swatting high fives anywhere they were available. I was doing a pretty good job with my goals.
During Trouble
And then there was March.
I think it was somewhere around March 13 that we got booted from campus
and we had to completely rethink how we were teaching our semester
courses. You can find my own detailed weekly
responses in the series of “Quarantine Logs” by scrolling on down. If you read any of those, you know that I
stayed very busy during this transition and during the final weeks of the
semester with working online and helping my kids finish their school year as
well.
The exercise was also working out well. I was setting an alarm and getting up early
most days to run and do PIYO before signing on with students. The PIYO workouts were up to about 5 per
week. The running distances were
mercifully back down to just 3.1 miles each day and my legs were tired
following the longer runs of training.
During these weeks of change, gratitude came pretty easily
to me. I was thankful to have a job that
allowed me to work online. I was
thankful for my students’ abilities to learn online. I was thankful to come up with solutions to very
difficult studio teaching problems. I
was, of course, thankful for the good health of everyone I knew. Thankful for toilet paper and whatever else
the stores seemed to stay out of stock on for a while. I had time each day to write these things
down. I’m even grateful for that time of
gratefulness.
The difficult times were good times for sketchbook
content. There was a lot to write and to
sketch about. It was not as easy to find
the time for it, though. Many late
nights were spent throwing some thoughts down about the history of the day
before dragging myself to bed. My school
sleep schedule was tossed out the window completely. Instead of trying to be in bed by 11pm, I was
lucky to see my pillow before 1am. Some
nights it was these extra hours of wakefulness that allowed me to work in my
sketchbook. But some nights I just
couldn’t bring myself to open that little book.
I’d think about it and turn off the light in exhaustion. I missed some days in the sketchbook.
If you follow me on Instagram you can just skip this
paragraph about eating better. My eating
habits “during trouble” probably couldn’t have been worse. I still got a vegetable in fairly regularly,
but the amount of sweets I was putting in my body each week could probably be best
measured in tons. I may have stress-ate. Stress-eaten?
Either way, I ate way too many sweets.
We stocked up on sweets as the pandemic loomed and as soon as the
self-quarantine began, we had to go out and buy more because we were out. I did several “cooking with McAbee” things on
Instagram with insanely decadent food creations. I ate a lot of waffles. I drank a lot of coffee. I don’t normally weigh myself but I’m sure I
added some pounds during this time. I’m
ok with calling this one a failing grade.
Getting in exhibits is much easier when there are exhibits
to get into. Write that down. As I prepared to enter the stack of calls for
art on my desk I found that almost all of them had been canceled or rescheduled
because of the pandemic. I was in a very
cool exhibit at The Bascom, which, if I haven’t blogged about that, I need to
do that soon. But I wasn’t even allowed
to go pick up the work for that show because the town had been closed to non-residents. The one show I entered before it was canceled
just recently canceled their rescheduled date and refunded the entry fees. I did have a gallery call me to discuss the possibility
of doing some sort of exhibit of the goofy stuff I did online during the
quarantine, but that hasn’t been scheduled yet.
Looks like I don’t pass this one either.
But I do have a lot of new work ready so if you know a gallery looking
for a show…
Some of my friends have zipped through books during the last
few months. I apparently spent most of
my extra time on drawings or other creative activities and missed my reading
times. I am proud to say that I’ve done
a pretty good job with reading the scheduled Bible passages every day, but I
have missed some days. I’ve also done
well with reading at least a page in a bedside book, but again, there have been
the late nights where all I did was turn out the light and immediately begin
snoring. Most recently, I bombed all my
reading on our vacation. I took the “read
through the Bible in a year” Bible with me along with a brand new book I’ve
been looking forward to reading. I completely
forgot the Bible was in my bag all week and after reading Chapter 1 in the
other book on the first night, I don’t think I opened that one again all
week. Vacation was intense. I may get a passing grade for the entire time
period but I’m really not proud of that week of reading.
Again, if you read any of the “Quarantine Logs” in this
blog, you know that while I may not have had a problem with external
positivity, I did struggle with internal positivity. So much of what I did outwardly since early
March was aimed at helping others find a reason to smile and keep going. Inside my head it was not always so
positive. I was very frustrated with how
the pandemic impacted my semester and my students. I was frustrated with how it impacted my kids’
school year and G’s job. I realized
these were things beyond my control and I tried to minimize their impact on my
positivity. I suppose there were days
when I did as well as anyone else. There
were certainly days I didn’t manage well.
I experienced random moments of crankiness and general dismay at the
events around me. However, under the
circumstances, I’m not ready to say I did poor job of being
positive. I actually think I did pretty
well considering the sky was falling in giant chunks all around me.
Just as we ended our self-imposed isolation time and began
our summer break, the world decided that some civil unrest is what this year
needed next. During our annual family
vacation the country erupted into protests and riots. I’m looking at the coming summer the way my
dogs look at me when they see that the fun car ride ended up at the smelly building
where they get stuck by needles and someone jabs a cold thermometer in their
butt. Perhaps it’s a good thing that I
have my 7 goals to focus on. If you had
goals or resolutions for this year, I’d love to hear how you’re dealing these
days. If you’ve failed a few like me, a
fresh start begins tomorrow.
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