Today was supposed to be rainy and dreary. But it wasn’t. The rain came through more quickly and thoroughly washed away the last vestiges of 2020. And this morning the sun broke through the clouds. The air felt like spring. It was a new day in a new year.

Of course, this does not mean anything in the grand scheme of the world. A beautiful January 1 in one town does not mean that the tide has turned any more than the flipping of the calendar magically changes our circumstances. The things that made last year so difficult stubbornly still exist: the pandemic and the maddening number of people who don’t take it seriously, the leaders tilting at razor-bladed windmills for political gain, the sickness, the dying, the heartbreak.

The lingering of the past year made me stop in my tracks this morning. It literally stopped me. I took advantage of the beautiful morning and went on a new year’s run. The route I usually run takes me near 2nd Avenue where a suicide bomber set off a massive explosion on Christmas Day. Several streets downtown are still closed which meant that I had to stop and figure out a different way to find my way home. Despite the cleansing rain and the bright new day, the echoes of a harsh year still resonated.

In an effort to get out of my typical music patterns, I set out in 2020 to listen to as many different albums as possible. Many of these are albums that were new to me interspersed with some old favorites. The project got derailed in the last quarter of the year, but I still got to listen to a lot of great music. I listened to 67 unique albums this year and I’m hoping to hit a hundred in 2021 and hopefully hit 100 unique albums. Anyway, here in alphabetical order are albums that I listened to this past year:

In the whirling dervish that is Christmas season, music is one of the main things that ground me. I spend a lot of time in late November making different Christmas mixtapes (technically they are playlists but “mixtapes” sounds cooler) for different moods.

My Advent playlist is a little different from the others. It still features carols but it also dips outside to non-Christmas music songs that capture the longing, the tension, and the hope for light in the darkness that marks this time of waiting. Since we are in the midst of that season, I figured that I would share the songs from this mixtape with you.

I made my way through our dimly lit house this morning in order to get our oldest son up and ready for virtual school. Before I could get upstairs, I saw something stir on the couch. There he was; fast asleep. At first I tried to gently rouse him but he merely just rolled over and continued to snore. Escalation was necessary. I lovingly rubbed and patted his back. I leaned into his ear and made funny noises. I took his blanket and pillow. Nothing.

Finally, I turned on the music playlist I made for him and his brother. Not too loudly—I’m not a monster—but enough to see if it got a response. The first song on the mix is the theme song to Phineas & Ferb, one of his favorite cartoons. At the first word, he shot up. He later admitted that he thought there was an episode on TV and didn’t want to miss it. We got our day started as the playlist carried on with songs about Perry the Platypus and odes to the Star Wars desert planet Tatooine.

But it was the chorus of that first song that has lingered with me:

This could possibly be the best day ever / and the forecast says that tomorrow will likely be a million and six times better / So make every minute count / Jump up, jump in, and seize the day / And let’s make sure that in every single possible way / Today is going to be a great day

Long voting lines aren’t that bad if you bring a book. Last Thursday, I found myself in a queue that wrapped around our local library’s parking lot before snaking in and out of the stacks. I had been warned and came prepared because there was no way that I wasn’t going to vote. I read and chatted with my neighbors in line each six feet to the other side of me: a Florida transplant and a Nashville native who recently returned home after being overseas.

It’s funny how connections can spring out of nothing but proximity. All we initially had in common was our place in line, but that was enough to pleasantly pass the time to talk about the state of the world, how different regions have responded to the pandemic, and whether hipsters still dominate East Nashville. In the lulls—as I thought about neighbors and an election that touches so many people—I finished my book. And this is one of the things I read:

All of us, part of the same body.
This is our body.
All of us entangled.

If a doctor tells you that there is something seriously wrong with your leg, you would not laugh and say,
Whatever.
You would be alarmed,
and you would seek help,
immediately.
Because what’s happening in one part of your body
inevitably affects the rest of your body because ultimately you have one
body.