Looking back on 2020, I’m reminded of all those ardent heroines of 19th century novels, filled with ambition and fiery resolve, but stuck in their homes doing needlework.

Since doing needlework is better than doing no work at all, I spent the early weeks of the pandemic sewing up several dozen face masks for my family and friends.

I was glad to be able to contribute to my family’s safety, and I was lucky to have the ability and the resources to make all those masks, at a time when my nieces and nephews were adapting to remote learning, my siblings were facing incredible challenges, and my parents were sheltering at home. This pandemic has underscored inequality in the most profound way. Many have been deeply affected; working overtime, being placed at risk, missing opportunities, and losing their jobs, their health, and even their lives, while others have made few sacrifices of any kind.

For myself, I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate, but I feel for my nephew, whose prestigious internship in nuclear physics at CERN was cancelled. And I’ve worried incessantly about my brothers, both working long hours in emergency rooms and COVID wards. This has been a hard time. But God willing, we’ll all continue to be healthy, and we’ll soon be together once again.

Back to needlework. My knitting needles came in handy in December 2020 when my Ixchel jumper won its category in New Mexico’s Make It With Wool contest. Any good Norwegian will insist you should never become big-headed, so I feel obligated to mention that owing to the pandemic, there were certainly fewer entries than usual. But still, I won!

Actually, this reminds me of the time I won a shiny blue ribbon in the Laddie’s Loppet Cross-Country Ski Race, having competed against only seven other women in my age group. The blue ribbon simply says “First Place,” not “First Place out of eight women, seven of whom were probably skiing alongside their kids.”

(I just looked up the Laddie’s Loppet at Maplelag in Minnesota, and it appears that their annual ski Loppet has now been replaced with an annual mountain bike Loppet, and I while have nothing against mountain bikes, I’m feeling a bit wistful all the same.)

Earlier in 2020, another of my knitted items found a temporary home in the Baldishol Tapestry Exhibit at Norway House in Minneapolis. This exhibit featured textile works inspired by the famous medieval Norwegian Baldishol Tapestry, and it brought together artists from England, Canada, and all over the US. My work, “An Eye on the Past,” was made with vegetable-dyed Navajo-Churro wool.

You can see an article about “An Eye on the Past” at the Norwegian Textile Letter.

Throughout the shutdown, I attempted a fair amount of quarantine baking, whipping up blueberry muffins and cakes and cookies and crusty bread. So many carbs! Also, I mastered the art of homemade doggy biscuits, because quarantine baking madness is real.

Lately the mountains have been calling, and I’ve been longing to go for a socially distanced hike on the La Luz trail above my home. Unfortunately, the trail has recently been threatened by aggressive mountain lions. If the story of the pandemic were a dystopian novel, I think the critics would find the reference to mountain lions a bit heavy-handed. They’d say it was too much, and they would be right. It has all been too much.