Adapting to the New Normal

From the [Guest] Editor By Angie Lokotz

Neshi is taking a much-needed break right now and has asked me to step in. She will likely fill you in as the weeks pass and she reflects and regroups. Yvette has been part of my family since she was in her teens. We were young together and now we’re elders!

I’m part of the team that has helped put together this magazine for many years and though the contributors don’t know me, I feel as though I know them. This has been an unprecedented year and we’ve gotten through it together.

2020 is drawing to a close. The nights are getting longer and colder, but twinkling lights are back on houses, businesses, and trees. You’ll notice a theme running through most of this month’s articles: longing for light, longing for family, nostalgia for the way things used to be and workarounds for the new reality of life, work, and holiday celebrations during the pandemic.

Some of us find ourselves far from family and because travel has been discouraged or restricted we will celebrate in our own small bubbles. We’ll send cards and gifts, but we’ll also use different ways to communicate with our loved ones. Many of us will primarily be video-chatting with grandparents, grandkids, parents and children.

Robert Frost stated that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.” It is instinctive to turn to family during times of hardship, and there are those who find that our families have grown as we create secure virus-free bubbles.

Some have adopted rescue dogs, some have had children (and their pets) move back in with them, some have moved in with parents.

Others have lost family this year. Covid Restrictions have forced us to rethink how we mourn, how we celebrate life and death, how we gather together to commemorate family.

I think often of family because we moved away over 20 years ago and aside from rare trips home or random visits by various family members passing through, we communicate only electronically. Much has changed since we left. Children have grown, graduated, moved, married, and some are having babies of their own.

Restrictions have obliged us to reconsider who and what is essential in our own lives—what we need, what we can give up. I find myself shedding books, clothing, and things I’ve collected through the years (so many things).

My spending habits have dwindled to purchasing only food and toiletries (and yarn to feed my sock habit), but I still have too much stuff. The things that are hardest to give up are those that remind me of family. I linger over items because “it was my mother’s” or “my daughter made it for me in third grade.”

My mother has spent this Covid year in a nursing home. She gave away so many items before she moved out of her house. I know now how she must have felt as she discarded them. She still keeps a small box of treasures. They are so few and so meaningful to her.

Snow is rare where I now live. We travel to the mountains to see it. Our cover image depicts the ground cover you will notice here in the Northwest with the return of the rains—mushrooms.

In this issue of Star Nations Magazine, you’ll find articles about Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Evergreens, Light and Empathy, and the Connection Between Heaven and Earth.

Please pour yourself a cup of tea or glass of wine, sit back, and enjoy this time as you read the articles, watch the videos, and listen to the audio presentations. I wish you all the best during this holiday season and a happy, healthy new year.

Jage Nagonan (Potawatomi for All My Relatives), Angie