What to say about 2016?

Hands Around Lake Merritt gave me hope

2016. Whew. What do you say about this year? A year of plotlines that would have made dubious fiction, played out in the newspapers instead. I tried to make a concise list of the most egregious stories but google ran out of memory. And it was downright depressing. Made me want to find Merrick Garland and go get drunk down by the pier together.

So just the most salient point: 2016 is the year democracy failed. The British voted against their own best interests. Colombians rejected peace in the world’s longest running civil war (if you don’t count the murderous chaos in Myanmar). And then, inevitably, Trump.

But I don’t want to focus on that right now. That would be like the man with whom I went to Cuba who could only talk about the toilet seats. (Or maybe what goes through them would be a better metaphor?)

Watching the cows come home in Switzerland did me good

Personally, 2016 was (of course) a mixed bag. I lost the relationship I thought would last the rest of my life. But how wonderful to have had that love! And I have hope that some form of it will continue into the future. Pesky future, being all unknowable.

Professionally, I expanded into a job I feel inexpressibly lucky to have. I had truly incredible groups this year. Let’s be honest, Rick Steves groups are always great, we just draw from good people, who travel for the right reasons and in the right way, but this year was above even our high bar.

Perhaps when the news is preaching fear, those who come into the world anyway are the cream of the crop. People who know that staying home is exactly the wrong response to terrorism. Who refuse to be terrorized. (Or at least who know there is extremely little actual danger involved. Terrorism is still less dangerous than driving to work.) I am grateful for my company, and for the people who travel with us. Best of the best, they are.

Beautiful and bizarre Skopje, Macedonia

And I am grateful for the incredible people at the International Rescue Committee, both the staff and my students. Again I am privileged to meet the best. I wish my students’ confidentiality wasn’t an issue, because their stories and characters would benefit the nation to hear. They’re an antidote to Trumpism.

And finally travel, one of the great joys of my life, was good this year. On a Balkan ramble I enjoyed Bulgaria, was happily surprised by Macedonia, and felt love in Greece. Then this last trip, to Vietnam, where I felt a perspective that might make 2017 a more loving place within me. The articulation is still burbling in my subconscious, but for now I can focus on one truth.

Humans are good. We really are. We are a good species. Too good for our own sake, maybe, since it’s mostly our worst individuals who yearn for power. Anyone who wants to be in control...is exactly who shouldn’t be allowed to.

The Vietnamese people have forgiven a horrible war.
That gives me hope.

That makes for troublesome headlines, but a deeply reassuring foundation. I don’t know exactly how many countries I’ve visited or people I’ve met, but I can happily tell you that in every single one of them I met wonderful people. Almost exclusively. People I would live next to, eat with, and have in my life.

Every country, and every year. 2016 was a beast. No doubt about it. But it had such goodness in there! And 2017 will have that beauty too. Happy new year, my friends!

Happy New Year! From a crotchety and grateful old man.

Holiday decorations in Portland

I don’t automatically care all that much about New Year’s Eve. I’m not much of a drinker, and I get queasy if I’m not in bed by about 3:00 AM, so not a “proper” partier either. But this crotchety old man does respect the notion and beauty of marking the end of one year and beginning of another, even if the calendar is basically arbitrary (the solstice is a much more significant turning point, but I can handle two).

Also, NYE’s have an odd way of coming to represent the year, or at least mark the stage. There was the one way-back-when in Santa Cruz that I spent tortured by jealousy, followed a solar loop later by a party in Switzerland where the sense of freedom and possibilities was as tall as the Matterhorn. (But much warmer.) Then there was the year K and I spent in a beautiful place, and tried our fledgling best to talk about the problems we feared and felt...but failed. A calendar later came a New Year’s of loss, confusion, guilt and pain.

New Year's Day in Strasbourg

Last year I went to a club with friends. I’m as happy in a club as a leech in the desert, and I spent the evening wrestling dickish temptations to shout-talk to someone “How about we go someplace where impressions and experiences are more than single-dimensional celebrations of snap judgments and superficiality?” Or “This is to proper socializing as twitter is to a book.” Or the most succinct, the gutteral growl of the cranky. “Grrrrrrumble!” But I was there for my friends, and appreciated the chance to be near them, even if I could only hear their smiles.

This year I’ll miss those friends, unable to hug and/or high-five them (ever tried to do both at once?) but in a much more satisfying environment: the world. The one that feels real, and comes with more dimensions than I can perceive.

Haven't been to Cambodia yet, but Myanmar's close, right?

New Year’s Eve 2014 will find me somewhere in Cambodia. Not sure where, yet. Maybe I’ll have new road-friends, I hope so. But I’ll have my lady by my side, audible and tangible, and though I won’t be able to touch the loves and friendships I cherish in other countries, they will be there too, audible and tangible in my heart.

That feels like a pretty good way to start 2015.