In a pandemic and election year of lockdown, isolation, and strife it was wonderful to note how my reflections back on the year's Sensorium (although the entries were sparser--I usually try to blog the senses once a week and this year there were just 13) contained rich and delightful memories.
2020 was the year in which I got my first tattoo, started the dog training Academy, framed more art, adopted Lily and Tish, played a lot of Divinity 2, and published a second solarpunk story.
In 2020, I also discovered the importance of rest. My word of the year for 2021 will be Restorative.
Standout senses:
Sound: Sebille's Theme, the music in Divinity 2: The Original Sin by Borislav Slavov and Jean Donaldson's phrase "happy snacky" the ideal state of a dog ready to learn
Smell: timothy grass from working on the farm
Sight: green leaves and blue sky lying the backyard this summer and looking up; images of Shetland--my pandemic travel voyeur fantasy
Touch: plump and plumped; dogs: weight, warmth, and in sweaters, Lily's head on my writing wrist, being sniffed
Quote of the Year:
“Someone treated you badly. It's all right. You're with us now.” — Rey, Rise of Skywalker
Fiction of the Year: hands down this short story collection by Susan Palwick which was just the balm I needed for 2020
"Work for a future where nothing needs to be broken for people to get what they need, and where no one's success cancels anyone else's." — Susan Palwick, "Wishbone," All Worlds are Real: Short Fictions
Non-Fiction of the Year: so many dog training books!
"Could we decide that training is, ideally, a partnership of sentient animals—one human and the other non-human—which has the goal of increasing the joy of both partners as well as everyone around them?" — Plenty in Life is Free - Reflections on Dogs, Training and Finding Grace, Kathy Sdao
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