TWELVE

By Kari

Over the last ten or so years, the amount of time that I spend listening to music has dropped significantly as podcasts have filled up most of my available listening time. But the way I mostly listen to podcasts at home is through one AirPod with my phone in my back pocket as I move around the house, and listening in such a way means that anyone else who is in my vicinity can’t tell that I’m listening to something. As far as they can tell, I’ve available. When schools closed in March and suddenly my children were home all of the time, my private podcast listening was constantly being interrupted. And so I started playing music more instead – usually on the Sonos where we could all hear it. Listening to lots more music has definitely been a silver lining of the pandemic for us. It was so fun last week when Spotify released its “Wrapped” year-end listening summaries for each of us and we could review what had dominated our year in listening. Side A of our star includes lyrics from our most-listened to songs of the year, the songs that “got us through”. We even created a family playlist of the songs that were tops on our lists. You can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/135MarMD8eqcoQJxKYPSFg?si=43RDYQJZTamIbEhlWlFskg

Side B of our star is a mini photo album of special moments and the activities that filled our time and left an imprint: getting a trampoline, lots of bike riding (the youngest finally learned to ride a bike at age 8!!), trips to the Hackney Riviera, a holiday in the New Forest, baking sourdough, tie-dying t-shirts, playing with neighbours over the fence, making podcasts with sparkly new equipment, Zooming with family… and lots more. 

In the future when we look back on this weird, weird year, there will be lots of warm feelings and happy memories despite… you know… 2020.