2022 has been one of the most beautiful years of my life. I got to travel, keep doing a job that I like, met plenty of new people, got invited to unforgettable parties and developed more disciplined habits on music making.
I am in grateful disbelief for how many good things happened to me in the middle of an increasingly chaotic world, and I hold these blessings even closer, knowing that this year has been so hard on most people.
The ongoing pandemic, recession and war have turned around the lives of way too many families, as if it wasn’t enough to have to deal with daily secret pains. It is heartbreaking to grow with the awareness that joy is such a fragile state, it’s not owed to any of us, and that even the most fortunate person could see the course of their life lose its brightness so abruptly and drastically, even after having put so much time, effort, experience and hope in building their dreams.
River by Joni Mitchell is THE Christmas song that ticks all the boxes for me this year.
Keeping on living is such a difficult task when both events that we can and we cannot control cripple under our skin, wear us down, and lead us to believe that happiness is out of our reach because we’re not unlucky -we’re simply difficult to love, and even ungrateful.
While the years Twenties invoke the strengthening of communities, and yet history keeps throwing the disheartening byproducts of patriarchy, I want to acknowledge the sadness and loneliness that good people might be feeling during this Christmas. All of that frailty, weakness, despair and eagerness to be taken care of, and loved, are valid.
Who knows that admitting we are all eventually unarmed might be the one thing that stops us from fighting.