Happy New Year! I was intending to write my annual post of my submissions stats for the year (which I will do in the near future) but a prompt suggested by poet Meg Hartmann, who offers a self-led write-a-poem-every-day course and other goodies for writers on her website Ah The Sea, led me in a completely different direction. The prompt, by sheer coincidence, turned out to be a line from my first writing teacher and long-time mentor, Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists.

What could be more generous than a window? 

I have a gorgeous set of floor-length sliding windows in my dining room, where I often work in the winter in order to take in the maximum amount of sun. Looking out that window, I ended up meandering down a wider path and considering all of 2025–the good, the bad, and the ugly.

For me personally, the salient event of 2025 was my father’s death on March 1. Despite my gratitude for his long life (he was 93) and relatively short illness before his passing; and despite our not being exceptionally close even though our overall family bonds were strong, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a foundation of my world had come undone. My father’s illness and death, as well as its aftermath, have forged me into an entirely new relationship with my mother. Before 2025, I’d speak to both my parents on the phone every week or two, casually recounting the newsy highlights of my life while they shared theirs. This past year, I spoke to my mother no less than every other day: at first providing emotional and logistical support in navigating my father’s care, and then, after his death, occasionally helping her problem-solve life’s relentless administrative demands but mostly providing someone to talk to in the unbearable dark loneliness of isolation.

This has made me so grateful for my partner, Shel, and our 46-year relationship. I have major hermitic tendencies (and I’m grateful that he’s learned to dance around them) but ultimately, I will always choose connection over isolation.

I’m also grateful that my mother, at age 91, is cognitively sharp and physically able to care for herself. As with my father, my mother and I are not exceptionally close, though we share the same family-bonded loyalty. And we probably have less in common than my father and I did in terms of personality, outlook and values. But I’m determined to be the best daughter I can be and provide whatever support I can in this inconceivable transition. (My parents were married for 72 years.)

As I look out the window and watch 2025 recede into the distance, I can’t close out this reflection without considering how many people in our country have suffered losses, even if, due to luck and privilege, I haven’t been as deeply affected: loss of safety due to hate crimes and ICE overreach, loss of economic security, loss of access to health care, loss of access to food, loss of due process. I continue to be distraught as news story after news story reinforces the conjecture that cruelty is not only a result of the administration’s policies–it is the point. Yet, I’m hoping that some of the pundits are correct in predicting that the swelling tide of resistance will continue to rise in 2026.

Happy New Year! May it be joyful, peaceful, and cruelty-free! And may all your windows be generous!

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