The year that was 2020

On the last day of 2019 I went off on my own for a long walk along a very beautiful coast path in Cornwall before meeting back up with the group of friends with whom I was on holiday: a holiday that involved lots of good food and good conversation, some spectacular views, a fair amount of silliness and lots of laughter and signs of precious friendships. 

It was also, officially, my last contracted day at St Chad's Sanctuary, a place that had been interwoven with my story of living in Birmingham for the preceding six and a half years: a rupture that felt, and still feels, right, but which was nonetheless tinged with much sadness.

For reasons I both have and haven't written about, both public and personal; I knew, even then, that the year ahead would present some interesting challenges. But nowhere did I anticipate quite the ones it did!

It feels somehow strange, now, to look back on the first couple of months of the year: that "normal" time, with all the interactions and activities I completely took for granted before everything was turned on its head. January and February feel both so long ago because March to December lasted for approximately five thousand years, and yet somehow tantalisingly close because so little has happened in the meantime. Either way though, I struggle, now, to think of them as part of the same entity as the pandemic phase of the year. When I was asked, recently, about highlights of the year it definitely took a while to click that could in fact include things before these covid times! 

So here is my best attempt at a brief (not one of my strengths, bear with me!) month-by-month review of the year that was 2020.

January: Quite a lot happened ... but among other things I started my new job with Birch Network. The job hasn't entirely gone to plan since, (because ya know, pandemic and stuff,) but I remain very glad that I get to be part of this organisation for whom I have a great deal of respect and whose principles and values I share.

February: The highlight of the month was, most definitely, the Stories of Hope and Home residential to Wales which was a very intense but truly beautiful few days: the building of a family. With the benefit of hindsight I'm even more glad we didn't think 'oh lets just wait until Easter / summer when the weather will be better' and thus we made that truly special trip happen before all the shenanigans that followed. 

March: Started out as a largely "normal month" ... The Stories group continued to grow and welcome new members. The learn and play group which had folded when I left the Sanctuary restarted at Carrs Lane. All sorts of different people came and went in the flat. And then, overnight, everything changed and by the end of the month the city centre, and the flat, had largely fallen silent and all of life became suddenly very, very different. The desire to be able to get out of the city centre was strong enough to persuade me back on to my bike for the first time in a long time ... building my confidence and stamina as a cyclist is definitely one of my big positives of the year. 

April: My twin abiding memories of April are that the sun shone more or less continuously ... and that all of life moved online. Along with the rest of the world I discovered zoom (zoom fatigue would not come until later) Everything and everyone moved online: groups and classes; an entire pilgrimage which transferred to virtual space better that I could have imagined; quizzes, more quizzes ... And if there was a definite lack of real human contact, there were also, at least in those early days, in the realisation of our need for community and contact, many opportunities to pick up threads of relationships across time and space.  

May: With lockdown looking like a long haul, and new routines at least partly cemented in place, May was the month for undertaking various projects: I finally embarked upon the time-consuming but mostly very enjoyable process of editing all my blogposts to turn them into a book. There was a significant sound and video editing project for Stories of Hope and Home and one bathroom and one bedroom in the flat got painted. Although, thinking about it, some of those things definitely at least overlapped into June. It all sort of blurs doesn't it?!

June: And then just like that, we were allowed to see people again! I like to think I'll never again take for granted the possibility of going for a walk with friends, but I guess once this is all a distant memory, I probably will. There were some very impressive thunderstorms too (I can attest that there is a particular joy to dancing barefoot on the roof in torrential rain!)  

July: At the beginning of the month I met some of the Stories group, in person, for the first time since March: something that would continue, with various walks in different parks and green spaces throughout the summer and early autumn. Some other stuff happened, probably. Towards the end of the month we wound up both the school kids and mums and tots zoom groups, and evening prayer also closed down for a summer break.

August: With the restrictions eased, but the evidence all pointing to outdoors being far safer than in, August was flanked by two camping trips beginning and end ... the first in perfect sunshine, the latter a good inculturation experience for the stories group as we kept smiling through wind and rain. In between there was some other stuff, including a couple of days away with friends and a couple completely on my own, both of which helped recharge my batteries.

September: It was lovely to have Lydia back and to celebrate her turning 18 which, despite restrictions was a lovely evening with perhaps more cocktails than was really very wise! It was lovely to also welcome Orla back to live with us again. A bit more community as we headed towards autumn and the inevitable impending return of stricter restrictions felt like a very good thing.

October: With risk assessments written and rewritten, October was the month that the Stories group finally started meeting again at Carrs Lane (briefly, until the next lockdown interrupted three weeks later!) which was wonderful. Lydia and I also welcomed the junior church children back: there was noise, and paint, and a reminder that if everyone shared as much joy about church as these small people, churches would be in a much better place! Plus the online art course I joined was another October highlight. 

November: My memory tells me I spent most of November stuffing envelopes... which is not entirely true but I did put together advent packages with an activity a day for more than sixty children which amounts to enough envelopes for me to have got to the point where I was literally dreaming about them! Still I guess it made good use of lockdown 2.0. It was also the month in which the Stories group did our first school visits for a long time, albeit via an internet connection.  

December: By the final month of 2020 I was exhausted ... looking back from a better place on the other side of a Christmas break, I think I had reached the brink of burnout. But in the midst of the tiredness, December also had any number of little highlights thrown in: delightful junior church sessions, walks and cycle rides with friends including some I hadn't seen for months, random fun for no particular reason, the joyful photographic evidence that my advent parcels to families were definitely worth the effort, some lovely sessions with the stories group including welcoming our first new member for a long time, a few opportunities for some very cold paddling, a lovely Christmas day celebration, and a much needed break. 

It wasn't what any of us hoped for or expected, but looking back, it wasn't all bad either! 

Bring on 2021!