2020 Year-in-Review

The year 2021 has started and the year 2020 has gone into history. Time to take a moment to look back. This is my 6th Year-in-Review and as in the prior years, I’ll go by the alphabet.

2020 from A to Z 

Advent-calendar – Since many years, Vicky, a dear friend of mine, sends me a card with 24 tiny windows, which when you open them up contain various Christmas symbols and scenes. It is such a lovely tradition. Like many traditions it’s been rather commercialised, by now there is the chocolate/candy version but also Playmobil, beer bottles, shampoo & cream versions. You name it, the options are endless. And since 2020, there is one more option! I’ve sold about 100 advents-calendars made of tiny paper stars, containing wisdom quotes. It was the first product in my store and my first attempt at selling handcraft products online. Customers can have the calendar sent directly to the recipient, so I wrote dozens of little cards with personal messages to go along with the calendars. That was probably my personal highlight. Enabling others to show those they love that they do. I’d be thrilled do a lot more of that in the coming years.

Black List, Breaking Bad, Better call Saul – 2020 was the year of Netflix, Zoom and Amazon. I can’t say the trend missed us. Black list was just one of the series with endless episodes and seasons that my daughter, my husband and me watched. We also watched “Breaking Bad” and the prequel “Better Call Saul”, as well as “The Queen’s Gambit”  and a german series called the “Die Trauerrednerin”. I wouldn’t say we “binge-watched”, as we never watch series before dinner, nevertheless, I don’t think, I ever watched as much TV as in 2020. That said, these moments on the living room sofa, brushing my daughters hair or just being nice and comfy together, will be remembered as lovely moments of togetherness. Making the most of our joint time. As the kids grow up darn fast! 

Covid 19 / Corona – The year 2020 showed us how fragile everything we take for granted is. Do I need to say more? I do not think so. Last year in spring, I wrote a piece about Corona inspired by writings from a Dutch and Italian woman. At that moment, we had no idea yet that this pandemic would affect us for so long and that almost a year later we’re still in the midst of it. Nevertheless, my words back then still capture the essence of how I feel about what’s happening.

Deutsch – At the start of 2020, I interviewed for a role at the city premises to coordinate the numerous volunteers, who are helping refugees trying to rebuild their lives in Germany. I really wished I had been able to get this part-time role. Unfortunately, in my job interview I was rather honest about the fact that I still can’t write German without making quite a few spelling errors. I’ve searched for spelling tools that would help me get better but the kind of mistakes I make are not spotted / corrected by any of the currently available tools. Sometimes honesty is good, perhaps too much of it not necessarily. It is a fine line. They took someone else. C’est la vie.

Etsy – The platform for creatives to sell their creations. The place where my Advent-calendars and all other tiny stars found a home. At this moment, I am working on several new products to add to my store.

The joy of making something with my hands. It is meditative and fulfilling.

It makes me loose every sense of time. Sometimes I wonder if it is my flight out of reality or a real future ambition. Perhaps it is both. If you want to see what I make, go visit my tinylittlejoys store!

Family – Where to start on this one? Going into 2020, before Corona, my family went through probably one of the most intense times ever. My parents had to leave the extremely large premises, they were renting until the building would get sold. It was clear from the start that this rental home was a temporary solution. It was in absolute need for renovation, the rent was lower than the gas bills. It used to be a city hall, the city hall my parents took their vows and renewed them 40 years later. The isolation was a disaster. Moving from this enormous building to a small townhouse was a most devastating experience for my mother. She had to let go of 90% off all the things she ended up collecting in 50+ years. While a the same time, my dad was no longer able to support her as by now he hardly knows her name. When everything falls apart it is hard to stay sane. We somehow made it through.

Knowing that our love bonds are strong enough
to sail through heavy storms is precious.

It did knock my out of my shoes health-wise, which meant I had to cancel my trip to New York and wasn’t able to toast with Vicky on her 50th birthday. One can not have it all. Luckily, Vicky was able to make it to New York and back really just days before the lockdown would have kept here there. Crazy times. So much is sure.

Greece – Never give up hope. Our flight schedule changed about 4 or 5 times and really other than me, no one in my family thought this vacation was actually going to take place. But we had our bookings and my husband was ok with not cancelling unless we would be cancelled upon. Which wonder, wonder, did not happen. Greece was at the time not very much affected by the pandemic and so we ended up flying to Athens and then drove West to the Peloponnes. The weather was beautiful, the sights were as well. There were hardly any tourists. We visited the Akropolis, where not even a handful of people walked around. We had booked a small apartment right at the sea and lying there at an empty beach was quite surreal. Greece is enchanting. Such contrast to a lot of other things which were far from perfect. Even when my thoughts were all over the pace, I swallowed every idilic moment deep into my core and am truly grateful we were able to capture and cherish this summer time feeling in the middle of a year that will not soon be forgotten.

Home – As I am writing this Year-in-Review, I am looking out of the window. We have a tiny green garden. The hammock just about fits in the middle of it. Yesterday, a handful of snow fell, but it melted as it hit the ground. What I want to say is, that home is home. And in times like those we are in, that is worth so much. Everyone has enough space to retreat and yet not so much that we loose sight of each other either. There is a guitar and a piano, more or less good wifi, a kitchen to cook and bake, a comfortable sofa, and everything else one could wish for. Louisa Hay, is said to thank her bed when she wakes up in the morning. I like that idea. I thank my home for having us live here.

Income – In my last year-in-review I wrote that 2020 was going to be the year I’d have a positive income again. Well, I neither failed nor succeeded. With no new job in sight, and my SAP certification being less helpful than I had expected, at least I ended up finally starting to build something new. It is still small. Perhaps that is why I named it tiny little joys. But if there is one thing I learned, then that small things can be real big.

And everything big once started small.

Jogging – I’ve tried jogging in the past but I never really got into it. This time I wanted it to be different. So many people around me were finding joy in running that I felt I needed to give it another try. I installed the app “From coach to 5K” that was recommended to me, bought a pair of running shoes and off I went. Luckily, the app builds up really slow while at the start I was nearly dying after two minutes of running :-). But I got better week after week and moreover I started enjoying it.

That fabulous feeling of improving oneself can be quite enthralling.

I had a few hicks up, first with my eyes and later on with my knees. When I finally made it to run 20 minutes without intervals, my left knee brought me to a full stop. Too bad. I am pretty much recovered now and I do not want to give it up. So for the moment I am doing WII-sport exercises to make the knee the stronger and then we’re going to give it another try! 5K is the goal for 2021! It is not quite a marathon, so it must be doable.

Kindness Advent – In the group Being Global in Bergisch Gladbach there are some truly terrific women. We went together for walks, did Zoom calls, started a cinema club, and then the Kindness Advent was launched, full of random acts of kindness to cheer one-other up. And again it showed the importance of these small things we can do to uplift another and keep up the spirit. I am very thankful for this lovely group of people.

Lifelong Learner – I’m a question-lover. Take for instance the question:

„When was the last time, you did something for the first time?“

I had little notion of how difficult it is to make a good product shot. I had no idea how to advertise on Pinterest. Setting up a small online store is very different from managing a large one. We never stop learning. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?

Moving – I wrote about my parents moving from a large temporary house to a small townhouse. Well, that was not the only move. After the summer, my father moved to a nursery home. We all knew it had to come this way. Yet, actually going through it was heart-wrenching. At first he had share a room with a 90+ year old man in a wheelchair. The room hardly fit two beds and two closets. My dad used to be so happy out in nature, out on the ocean, out and about. And now he was locked up in a place with old people, of which many in a further stadium as himself. The mixture of guilt and relief my mom had to go through was heavy. As if she hadn’t had enough to swallow yet. But life is not all guns and roses. And luckily she is a tough cookie and slowly she’s finding peace again. On the 28th of December, my dad made yet another move. To a single room, with a street facing window, in the village he grew up in. Due to Corona, I have not yet been able to visit him in his new domicile, but soon I hope I will be able to. For a moment, we were worried it would be hard for him to reorient again. But he has always been an adventurer and even when he might not remember that, he still is.

No – No Vietnam, no New York, no skiing, no job, no cinema, no dining out, no big Christmas dinner, I could continue like that for a while… When my daughter looked at the words for this review. She said. „That’s quite negative“. But no is not only negative. It also creates room. Room for other things. Some people find it really hard to say no. From that perspective, Corona had its benefits. No excuses needed. Personally I rather say no, then simply have it forced upon me. But life is not all just beers and skittles. Life is what it is, as much as it is what we make it out to be.

There’s sunshine, and there’s rain, and snow and storm. Change is constant. Every day, a new day is born.

A new day, with new challenges as well as well new opportunities.

Oscar Wilde – One of my favourite authors. So much of what he wrote is still so relevant today. Timeless wisdom. Wrapped in ironic, iconic ways. Folding the Oscar Wilde Stars and selecting the quotes for those stars was a pleasure. So many wise words were going through my fingers, I felt grounded and growing. Like a tree, which roots go deep into the earth, while at the same its branches stretch far and out.

Potential – At times I find it helpful to look up words, just to see them spelled out in a „dictionary way”.

Potential = possible when the necessary conditions exist.

There have been times this year, when people dear to me suggested that I have more potential than “folding stars”. It was said with truly good intentions. Feedback most often hurts when there’s some truth to it. It makes one doubt if one is one the wrong track. But what’s the right and what’s the wrong track? We are often made believe that there are limitless tracks to choose from. More so than ever before in history, we are self-made man and woman. Only the sky is the limit. But how true is that? Let’s look up the word Option.

Option = one thing that can be chosen from a set of possibilities,
or the freedom to make a choice.

Sometimes our options are actually limited. Now, that is not a disaster but it is fact, that we must be willing to see. There’s a Ted Talk from the school of life that I’ve watched multiple times. I love the speed, the humour and foremost the message it contains about a kinder, gentler philosophy of success and Alain Botton’s point about  taking the time to probe our personal notion of success. Because as a matter a fact, I really truly enjoy building up my online craft store. I want to see where I can take it. I am thrilled every time my phone makes that little buzzing sound when a new order comes in and I love writing the messages that people add for the recipient of their tiny little gifts. I love enabling people to show their love, to those they love.

Quadrants – The Q is the letter that makes me doubt doing this Year-in Review by my A-Z method :-) Yet, any type of limitation, adds a level of creativity. So this year, I choose the word quadrants. I am a fan of visualisations of data, and quick frankly of life itself. Since a few years, I regularly score my life on a pie chart, when I look at my past charts it shows I’m a notorious optimist. Optimist might not actually be the right word as the pie looks at the Now rather than at the future. Perhaps I came into this world with a pre-installed bright-spot scanner. It is not that I’m unable to see the bad stuff, I have my doubts and insecurities and all that, but bottom line, I just need to look outside and see a little squirrel run by and that resets life, just like that.

Live your life by the minute.

A quote from my wise words star collection. That’s what it boils down to. If we focus on the bright spots, and live our life by the minute, then all the hick-ups get swallowed by the bigger picture, which in the end we ourselves paint.

Race – Life is not a race. Life is an adventure. I’m 45 now, I might still have half a life ahead of me. Last year, I learned that Peter Drucker wrote 35 books of which he wrote 2/3 after he turned 65. That delights me! We often hear we need to live as if this day is our last, as we could get run over by a bus any day. But is all that hurry to do things really necessary? Clearly, I do not spend my days laying in bed or on the sofa but I do think things are allowed to take time.  Detours are allowed, nonsense is allowed, getting stuck is allowed. It is all part of the adventure. Not everything wants or needs to be optimised. Being and becoming walk hand in hand. They require no force to happen.

SAP – Nine months of studying. Countless tests. A handful of certificates. I’ve entered the world of SAP. And yet not quite. As I was writing up this yearly review, I had lined up all my words in a multi-phased process, and as I approached the end of my draft, I realised that SAP did not show up anywhere. As if I had forgotten all about it. How selective our memory can be! Nine months out of twelve and three months later, looking back at the entire year, I forget about all the effort, all note taking, all the quizzes, all the training and exercises. I guess that is what Daniel Kahnemann calls the peak experience. Selective memory can ride out so much and three months of Etsy overruled nine months of SAP just like that. Interesting!

“The one who rides in front” – Last year August, I visited my parents for the last time while my dad was still living at home. We wanted to go for bike tour, but my parents’ bikes had been stolen by some drunk people and only my mothers bike had reappeared. So we rented a bike for dad and for myself in a nearby village. My mom dropped us off at the rental place and after she made sure, my dad had a bike he could properly ride on, she drove home and there I was. Just me and my dad, and two bikes. She had told my dad to stay right behind me. As we rode off, I kept looking back to see where he was. Slowly, I eased up. We rode through Schoondijke, a little village along the way and as we passed the church I saw my niece with her new born baby. The baby shower had been cancelled due to Corona, but in August outdoors, I saw no reason not to stop and say hello and catch a glance. Well, it wasn’t all that easy to stop my papa. About 30 meters later, I finally got him to stop. I tried to get him to turn around and meet my niece, Tess. I wasn’t very successful so in the end, my niece was faster catching up with us than we with her. By that time, I had called out Tess’ name probably a dozen times. As she stopped a “corona-distance” my dad looked at her and said: „Hi Tess.“ She looked surprised and asked me if he really still knew her name. I said, well, I just called out your name a dozen times, I guess it sticked with him. I looked at my dad, and asked him: „Pap, do you still know my name?“ He stared at me for a moment. Then he said: “Die, die voorop rijd” or on english. “The one who rides in the front”. It made me tear up a little. Yes, papa, I am the one who rides in the front now, when mom is not there. I thought of He, who Dances with the Wolves, and knew I treasured my new name.

Umarmst du mich mal? – This is the name of the podcast I started in August 2020. It is a podcast with smart questions and wise and joyful stories. It took a bit of courage to publish in my less than perfect German. After all, it’s the language of poets and thinkers. But I let go my resistance and went ahead. I need a new mic and after my end of December Pause I need to get back into my Sunday posting routine but the first seventeen episodes are live! They can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or right here.

Votings – I’m not the most political person, but 2020, I did check my phone more than once to see the final outcomes of the US elections. If Shakespeare would still be alive, I would have been dying to read the story he would write up after being a spectator in this brouhaha (new word for me…). Crazy times and I’m happy at least that sanity won the game, even when it did so only by a hair’s breath. I can’t even being to imagine what would have happened if things turned out differently and honestly I don’t want to either.

Water – I spend a great many hours at the outdoor pool this summer. Normally the outdoor pool is a crowdy place but due to Corona restrictions this was not the case this year. I’m a water child. I’ve loved the ocean, the sea, the bathtub, the shower, and well any kind of water, since the day I was born. Both my children were born in the water. So one of the positive side effects of the corona pandemic was, that I was able to swim forty-two 50 meter rows many a time last year.

Xmas – Lots of things were different in 2020. So was Christmas. It was sad not to be able to see the entire family. I wanted to hug them all tight and that not being allowed felt strange and sad. Perhaps as a demonstration that life is a rollercoaster, our big Christmas Tree tipped over the day after we had decorated it so beautifully. There it lay, in the middle of our living room. Some of the decoration broke, but not too many. We stripped off all the decorations and then we got it back up and redecorated the tree after which it looked as beautifully as before. Quite a powerful metaphor, right? It reminded me of those postcards that say:

Hinfallen, Aufstehen, Krönchen richten, Weitermachen.

Fall. Get back up. Adjust your crown. Continue.

Yes – If there was no South Pole there would be no North Pole. Without No there is no Yes and without Yes there is non No. Many things were not possible in 2020, yet other things would not have happened if 2020 hadn’t been like it was. Very likely, I would not have had an Etsy Store right now if it hadn’t been for Corona. There is good in every bad and bad in every good.

Zig zag – I came across a lovely image, not sure which book it stems from. There is a big panda that asks a little dragon that sits on his back:

“What’s important? The road or the goal?
The little dragon replies: “The companions”.

I so love this image. Some people say, life is like a line, a life line, others suggest it is a circle, yet again others think if it as a spiral. I haven’t quite made up my mind yet but as I looked up all words with a Z, I thought it could well be displayed as a zig zag. With all its ups and downs, it is always moving forward. When I looked up Zig Zag in Google Images, I found a chair, from the Rietveld Academy. A lovely, wooden, simple, gorgeously designed, Zig Zag chair. It reminded me that it does not always need to go forward. Breaks are allowed. Ups are allowed. Downs are allowed. And we all curve together, towards unknown territory. 

Let’s enjoy the ride!

It may be a little late to say Happy New Year, I am going to do so anyway.

🌟 Happy 2021. Make it a good one! 🌟