Things I Learned in 2022

 The first thing I learned in 2022 was that, like many of us, I felt depleted from 2021 and subsequently did not post a "Things I Learned" at the year's end. My tank is a little more full and I am grateful, so here we go:

- As long as your musical North Star is alive, keep hoping that you will see her perform in concert again. Thanks, Newport Folk Festival, Brandi Carlile, and Joni Mitchell for the surprise of a lifetime this summer! Folk on! 

- Leaving a job you enjoy is bittersweet but it has its perks like not rushing out the door every dang morning. 

- There has always been an emoji search bar on my phone. 🙄

- Austrians who live in Salzburg love Mozart, meat, and pastry and I love them for it! They care little for The Sound of Music movie filmed in and around their gorgeous city in 1964.

- Visiting those famed movie locations ignited my giddy delight (and perhaps some singing!)

- Bombas socks & slippers are the bomb.

- Midterm elections can be satisfying. The wave I always want to see is a sane, thoughtful one where facts matter. 

- The TV show Yellowstone has elements of Breaking Bad: cinematic location shots, ruthless main characters, and lots of secrets.     

- The NYTimes Spelling Bee is an addiction that I feed daily. 

- Banning books instead of informing children is misguided parenting. 

- Sunrise and sunset are two shows a day I continue to love attending at the beach.

- Upgrading my 2012 car to a 2020 version opened up the world of Apple CarPlay for me. I gleefully told anyone who would listen, "My car has CarPlay!" to which they answered, "Diane, e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e has CarPlay!"  Oh.

- Travel expands the spirit. 

- Guns are the #1 cause of death in children ages 1-19 in the United States. Repeat aloud. https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/

- Author Amor Towles and Actress/Author/Activist Jenifer Lewis are the newest invitees to my fantasy dinner table. 

- Being both an officiant and a guest at a wedding is double the fun! 

- I really like Bavarian beer! 

- German schoolchildren must visit the Dachau labor camp once during their 12 years of schooling. Education is valued even when history includes loathsome periods. 

- There is a lesson in there for us in the US re: teaching the truth about one of our loathsome periods - slavery.

- Stanley Tucci's series Searching for Italy and his book Taste ignite my primal Italian. (My 2023 hope is that some smart media outlet picks up Searching...)

- There is no shame in watching three seasons of Derry Girls more than four times. It's grand!

- I secretly love when my family enumerates the kinds of seafood prepared for Christmas Eve's Festa dei Sette Pesci (there were 10 this year!)              

- Everyone should read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

- "Expectations are resentments under construction." Anne Lamott

- Human rights activist and Holocaust survivor 97-year-old Gerda Weissmann Klein died in April. Please read my 2011 post about her incredible life as a protest to rising antisemitism   http://asubjectforconsideration.blogspot.com/2011/07/noble-be-man-merciful-and-good.html

- South Korea seems less distant while my firstborn visits my youngest in Seoul. 그것은 나를 행복하게 만든다

- SEPTA has a senior fare card that allows you to ride all routes for free and is funded by the PA Lottery. Buy those lottery tickets folks. 

- A new term - "angertainment" - accurately describes parts of social media, political rhetoric, and the attraction to outrage. It's dangerous. 

- Officiating at a wedding in a 17th-century castle in Ireland sets the bar pretty high for destination weddings. Maith-thú Meg and Ronan. 

- My first visit to see a concert at Johnny Brenda's is not my last. 

- Airbags and seatbelts are amazing life-saving devices in our cars, especially when tested by your spouse, who miraculously walked away after veering into a telephone pole to avoid hitting a deer.

- Mauritius is an island nation off the coast of east Africa. I now know this b/c my nephew-in-law is working there.

- Lesotho is a landlocked kingdom encircled by South Africa.  I now know this b/c my niece will be working there in 2023.

- The furthest I've ever worked from my home was a 27-mile train commute to Center City Philadelphia.

- The inevitable wax and wane of friendships is both a challenge and a gift.  

- It is reasonable to hold the seemingly opposing thoughts of being equally freaked out and grateful to be my age.

- We are definitely not alone.  https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/11/17/interactive-universe-map/

- Seeing Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell each perform in person, albeit separately, in the same year is sweet symmetry. "Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time" Sigh.

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Thanks, dear Reader for your time and indulgence to view this somewhat annual vanity project. Here's to 2023 and whatever she has in store. 

As we round out 2022, let's sit with singer Nina Simone's thoughtful meditation before her 1969 performance of "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" at NYC's Philharmonic Hall:

"Sometime in your life, you will have occasion to say, "What is this thing called time? What is that, the clock? 

"You go to work by the clock, you get your martini in the afternoon by the clock and your coffee by the clock, and you have to get on the plane at a certain time, and arrive at a certain time.

"It goes on and on and on.

"And time is a dictator, as we know it.  Where does it go? What does it do? Most of all, is it alive? It is a thing that we cannot touch and is it alive?

"And then, one day, you look in the mirror - you're old - and you say,

 'Where does the time go?'"

Lastly, 2022 was all about Joni for me.  

Here is a taste of her playing the melody to "Just Like This Train" at the Newport Folk Festival.  She's still got it. 

 As the seasons go round and round, Joni gets the last word from "Circle Game" 

...'til you drag your feet to slow the circles down...

                        Here is the audio link to Nina Simone's soulful live performance of  Who Knows Where The Time Goes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlJfrpuhlPI