As, hopefully, these upside-down times have a beginning, a middle and an end, I’m choosing to write about three things in those categories I enjoyed a lot this year.
The unexpected start.
I started to read again … wait, what? When did you stop?
Let me rephrase: I started to read again, for fun, just that. As a kid, the children’s library around the corner was never safe from me – I read it all, from horse stories to adventure books. This passion for narratives has been, since then, satisfied mainly by devouring audiobooks, but this year I returned to reading books more regularly (fewer horse stories though). My favourite book this year was 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster, and I am even more excited that the year is not over yet, and the next one could still be better! I have high hopes for you The Zahir by Paulo Coelho.
The winding middle.
As my trainer managed to keep his Taekwon-Do school open, teaching outside, online, and inside when allowed, I didn’t have to interrupt the development of my so carefully (over the years, with a passionate on/off relationship to sports) crafted martial arts skills – I hope a smiley wink shines through these lines. Even though the motivation to go and do the training remained as unpredictable as before, I gained a new appreciation for having this routine that retained some parts of the distant memory of a normal life. It felt energising to do the training and to plan it into my week as something I was able to continue to love/hate, despite all things that changed.
The long awaited end.
I have to admit that most of my time this year was spent tweaking and optimising the letters of my font Kaius Pro. It started as part of my master’s degree at the University of Reading, and it took me only 7 years to have it finally published. The feeling of crossing the finish line, and the accompanying celebrations (also in digital form) were great, and it makes me a bit proud that I kept going for such a long time. Maybe a few more lockdowns will be helpful to actually finish more of my own typefaces? Oh wow … let’s not go there.
I do hope we are close to an end of this upside-down world, and will be relieved to go back to hugging strangers. In the meantime we can always start, finish, or continue something else as a pick-me-up.
Bette(r) Days celebrates the things that did not suck in 2020. Each day in December, we’ll be posting about the highlights of our collective garbage fire of a year, type-related or not.