2020 Year In Review

 This year sucked. 

Yes, I'll Let This Come Between Us

Everyone always talks about how you shouldn't let politics come between you and your friends and family. I totally agree. Politics is an important topic, and what you believe politically definitely matters. But relationships should take priority over political differences. 

I've embodied this my whole life. Throughout my adulthood, most of my closest friends have held different political opinions from my own. The vast majority are registered Republicans or Independents. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one that is a blue-blood Democrat.

I believe whole-heartedly that the Trump administration represents an unprecedented danger to American society and politics. Because of that, I would certainly not seek out a new relationship with someone I knew was an ardent Trump supporter. But I would not, and have not, let support for Trump get in between me and any of my existing relationships. Thankfully, I don't have very many Trump-supporting friends and family (but I do have a few!). 

Be that as it may, I've finally found something that I will, in fact, let interfere in my relationships. And that's the pandemic. Like everything else in this deeply fractured country, the pandemic has been politicized. But it's not political. It's about science and medicine. It's about the health and well-being of society. 

We can differ on whether shut-downs are effective, or about the balancing of physical health against mental and economic health. Those are legitimate debates. But what's not debatable is the seriousness of this disease, or wearing a mask when you're in public. 

Having now spent 9 months (and counting) working the front lines of this pandemic, I have seen what this disease can do. I've seen people die. I've seen people sicker than they've ever been in their lives. I've witnessed the long-term effects on the heart and lungs. I've seen people on ventilators for weeks, turned face-down in their hospital bed as part of a therapeutic, gravity-based protocol. I've seen an ER overrun with Covid-positive patients who are short of breath and having chest pain. 

If you refuse to acknowledge the severity of this disease; if you act like this disease is just another flu; if you refuse to wear a mask in public; if you support retailers and restaurants that flaunt mandates; if you argue that this is all just unnecessary hysterics... 

If you do and say these things, then no, we can't be friends. Yes, I will let this come between us. 

This is a deal-breaker.  

Clair de Lune

Two of the most famous classical piano pieces are named after the moon. Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven was one of the first classical pieces I ever learned, back in high school. The other is Clair de Lune by Debussy, which literally means Moonlight. Beethoven didn't name his piece - he called it "Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia" - meaning simply "Sonata almost like a fantasy." (A fantasy was a type of semi-improvisational solo piano piece.) 

Debussy, on the other hand, did name his piece Clair de Lune, although that wasn't his original name for it. Written early in his career, around 1890, he originally called it Promenade Sentimentale - "A sentimental walk." It was the third movement of a 4-movement piece. But he didn't publish it at the time.

Fifteen years later, in 1905, a publisher convinced him to publish it. He agreed, but only after making significant changes to the music. He also decided to rename the third movement Clair de Lune, after a poem that he liked. 

I can remember my Dad playing the opening of Clair de Lune when I was a kid. He'd learned it when HE was a kid, and still remembered the first few bars. He did the same thing with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It was his tinkering with Moonlight Sonata that first inspired me to learn that piece when I was a teenager. But I never played Clair de Lune back then. 

So this year, I decided to learn Dad's old favorite. I don't think he ever learned the difficult middle part, so I've managed to outdo him on this one. (I outdid him on Moonlight Sonata too, learning the more difficult second and third movements, as well as the first.)