A new year, a new beginning. It sounds like a cliche, but once the Christmas decorations were put away comfort and joy evaporated. My grown kids were back at college, or at work, or moving cross country in hopes of a new job. The house is quiet, the refrigerator neat and tidy, and the cat and dog able to carry on chasing each other, stealing each other’s food, and taking long naps without being disturbed by video game marathons, football parties, and a constant flow of family and friends.

The short lived snow squall just after New Years brightened my mood but it only lasted an hour before it changed to rain, which has been flooding New York City with not one but two back to back coastal storms. The climate is changing, both inside and outside, and the darkness of midwinter without the white stuff only exacerbates my incessant sadness and gloom.

PTSD, I suppose, after four years of COVID surges, with two years of the migrant crisis piled on top, which shows no sings of slowing down. Health care workers in all roles struggle to deal with infectious diseases, make difficult choices, and engineer creative solutions to meet essential needs. More health crises loom: the effects of abortion bans on women’s health and well being, higher risk pregnancies, a sky rocketing maternity mortality rate, and the barriers to distributing vital vaccines against new viral epidemics like RSV before another cataclysm takes hold.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza rage, as do people. The mounting tower of stressors result in volatile situations that need calm and common sense to diffuse, and there is far too little of both. Why can’t we all just get along and get on with fixes rather than fights? We’re all human beings and need the same basics: food, clothing, shelter and safety.

Needless to say, my fiction writing has taken a back seat a few rows behind nonfiction, as I chronicle the public health effects on individuals, families and societies. I soldier on along with my esteemed and equally overwhelmed co workers try to find solutions, one person at a time. But I could sure use a few months to escape into a novel writing frenzy moving toward, at the very least, a hopefully ever after.

The first measurable snowfall in two years is in the NYC forecast for this week, and my cross country skis have been waiting impatiently for a jaunt in the park. I’ll take that as a hopeful sign that nature is normalizing, and maybe the rest of the world will too.

I’d love to answer questions, or engage in respectful debate, ever hopeful, to move toward meaningful solutions.