This is my Christmas wish to you all!
It's been a year we will never forget - a year that will be recorded in history and looked back on in much the same way as we look back to plagues, pandemics and awful diseases that ravaged people around the world in eras gone by. We haven't moved on so much really. Why has it been so difficult to get the message across that limiting our interactions with others, washing our hands frequently and wearing a mask could help reduce transmission? Why have so many thought they could defy the virus by defying the law? Why has the word 'pandemic' has seemed so hard to grasp even by those at the top? We really are all in this together!
Not what I intended writing about in this, my last blog of 2020, but ignoring Covid-19 would be downright silly. It has changed so many lives for the worse, caused so much suffering. I feel quite guilty that in so many ways, I feel to have benefitted from it. I had been enjoying a life in Spain, teaching English and some Zentangle in my beautiful studio, knowing that in September, I would be leaving to travel with my daughter to the UK to support her music studies in Liverpool. And despite the virus, we made it here. And because of the virus, I had already started teaching so much more Zentangle online to people across the world. Something I shall feel forever grateful for! Thank you to every single person who has done a class with me! And even more thanks to those of you who have returned to do many classes with me - it's been an honour and a pleasure to get to know some of you better and to see the growth in confidence and skill on your individual Zentangle journeys.
Thank you too to other CZTs who, like me, have moved their teaching online and who have offered some of the most amazing classes I could ever imagine. I have enjoyed expanding my learning and sharing screen time with some of my favourite tanglers in a range of very different workshops. We are a community that has grown and developed incredibly, taking the ideas of Rick and Maria and allowing imaginations and ink to flow freely. Without wanting to generalise, I know that tangling has been a huge help to a positive state of mind when things have been tough and when experts have recommended doing something creative to avoid the doom and gloom, I have found myself nodding wisely in agreement.
So whilst there is still some way to go to get through this - and I for one was convinced, back in March, that by the time we reached the New Year, we would have returned to normality - we have to hope that by keeping on keeping on for a bit longer, we will get there. To take a version of the Zentangle motto, 'Anything is possible, one step at a time'. To everyone I know (and I know a lot more people than I did in 2019) I hope that you can find whatever is necessary to allow you to have as happy, fun and festive Christmas, New Year or anything else that you may celebrate during the holiday season.
Much love to you from me.