We have already stepped into the new year on Day 2. It is as full of unknowns as any other year, only it includes unsavory ingredients we’d rather not have to cook with. Yet here we go into the kitchen. The old adage is that we cannot control events, but only control how we respond to them. We certainly cannot control how others respond to them which has caused friction between family members and friends over the holidays. Plans resist fluidity and last minute adaptations which are the only sensible means of navigating our way through the turmoil caused by flight cancellations, sniffles that turned out to be COVID, or that one of the people in a proposed gathering is suddenly far more cautious than the others. Did you get tested? When? Do you trust the test?

Standing up for your beliefs around preventing the transmission of the Omicron variant can be pitted as “wrong” against a differing point of view. Feelings are hurt when you are not validated, and given the amount of disinformation and shifting timelines of valid scientific recommendations that are out there, one could pick and choose ‘proofs’ that are contradictory. “Too many cooks do not just spoil the broth”, but may inadvertently spread the virus.

What to do? The future has other unpleasant variables that cannot be ignored. The political fragility of democracy in America, the planetary crisis that is ever growing in intensity, and the deleterious ripple effects of human beings living on a constant edge with one another all contribute to a sense of overwhelm. Our personal dramas continue against the struggling world. One day I feed on the sugar of my delicious baby grandson, and the next I have no appetite because my good friend at Kendal has a 99% sure diagnosis of pancreatic cancer with perhaps some months to live. The full test results are still not in.

All of us have a tory to tell. All of us have had to cope and flex and renegotiate our priorities. I encourage everyone to find ways to share the stress with trusted people in your lives. As a natural introvert, I am learning to reach out more to others. Despite my physical limitations, it nourishes me to open my heart to listen to the complaints, worries, and struggles that fellow Kendalites are dealing with. It is a mutual human need to share. I take my own turn within my closest circle. I also will restart therapy sessions with the wonderful psychologist that works at Kendal. She and I are on similar spiritual paths and having lost Richard as my intimate partner, I know how easy it is for me to glide over the bumps in my road without paying attention. And I do want to pay attention.

I sat down to write a song for the New Year. I wrote several versions and scrapped them all until this one got baked into a satirical cake. Some of you already heard this song and I am working with a techie friend in a few weeks to be able to warble the melodies for you to hear on the blog.

New Year Waltz 2022 by Judi Bachrach

Here we are waltzing into a new year.
Do we drink champagne?
Do we cry in our beer?
It’s hard to get cheerful
or any more tearful
We’ve all heard an earful about this past year.

We can try dancing while six feet apart.
It won’t stop the beating 
of my loving heart.
Counting out 1,2,3
starts us off swimmingly.
No stepping on toes, we’re apart from the start.

Singing inside the K 95 mask.
I can’t understand you 
or tipple from my flask.
But you don’t want my spit,
Or risk us both getting sick
Keeping us healthy is quite the dry task.

Let’s waltz out the old and sing in the new.
There’s no looking back
Skip the year in review.
Moving ahead
means more zooming in bed.
So let’s waltz out the old and sing in the new.
Let’s waltz out the old and sing in the new.


I received this short prayer yesterday. (Thank you Judith G.)

In all bodies health
In all hearts, love
In all lives, joy
In all the world, peace.