“Here is your country,” said Teddy Roosevelt. “Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.”

Looking back is something I rarely do and am not good at. But 2020 is a memorable year for me, and it isn’t quite over.

I can’t remember a year that challenged me in so many different ways – my spirituality, patriotism, politics, writing, fear,  friendships, resilience, hope, health, the idea of good and evil humanity, even my love.

I’m not the one to judge, really, but when I think about the year, I think I met or came close to meeting every one of these challenges, and I am proud of that.

Trouble and challenge is always a gift; it forces us to think about who we are.

Maria has always been honest with me, and I asked her if she thought 2016 had made me a better human in some ways.

“That’s a hard thing to say,” she said, “because it suggests you were not a good person in 2015. I guess 2016 really did make you better in many ways – how you focused on the Army Of Good and on doing good, and became more thoughtful about your life, dealing with your fears, writing about politics, dealing with your surgeries, your health, your country. I would say yes to that; it is something you have constantly been working at as long as I’ve known you so I would say yes…”

That’s a big deal for me,  there is no better praise for me, and I hope to do better still in 2021. I’m ambitious that way.

In his own way, Donald Trump was a profound gift to me; I am not the person I was in 2015, which is a good thing as I think of it. I understand that Mr. Trump hurt and frightened many people, but I can only write with clarity and integrity about how he changed me.

And the year was by no means all about him, although he has been an enormous presence and inverse inspiration. He helped me understand what I didn’t want to be and who I didn’t want to be, which was a powerful motivation for me all year long.

I learned a lot of things about myself I didn’t know or couldn’t quite accept. I cry when I think we helped keep the Mansion and Bishop Maginn safe all year and made sure no one went hungry.

I am happy that my writing about politics helped calm some people and offered others some perspective they needed.

I went right to work on the Mansion and Bishop Maginn High School, and I never quit. The year reminded me every day of the need for me to do that.

My heart also had something to say about it. I had two surgeries, and each one was successful and made me stronger and healthier, and my doctors told me each time that I had handle them well and honestly and with strength and hard work.

I suppose my biggest creative risk was deciding to write about politics again; I felt it was helpful to the many good people who were frightened and confused about what was happening in our country.

This was upsetting to the people who love dogs, but most of them hung around anyway. So did the dogs.

I think Mr. Trump turned me into a true patriot, the kind Thomas Paine might have liked, not the kind Trump supporters seem to like. That was a clear choice for me. I even bought a flag to hang over Bedlam Farm. This country is mine, too.

Maria nearly cried running up the flagpole.

2020 reminded me of something I tend to forget – what it means to be a refugee, what it means to be a refugee in America, what it means to be a refugee seeking a life in America.

The refugee students and family at Bishop Maginn High School offered me a way of paying back the debt I owe to my grandmother and my family, without whose courage and without the United States of America, I would not have the good life I live, or perhaps be alive at all.

I don’t know all that much about Theodore Roosevelt, but I identify with his eloquent definition of what it means to be a patriot in America:

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that he fails in his duty to stand by the country by inefficiency or otherwise. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

Loyalty to the country always, said Mark Twain, “loyalty to the government, when it deserves it.” Mr. Trump is important to many people, but he does not deserve my loyalty.

James Baldwin wrote that he loved America more than any other country in the world, and “exactly, for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

For me, one of the worst things that Donald Trump did was to punish and assault people who criticized him and the government. I don’t care to live in China, and my President shouldn’t be showing me what that might be like. I don’t believe Mr. Paine would have adored people who support that.

I won’t apologize for calling them out.

This year, I came face to face with this timeless question of health and self-preservation.  Either I would take care of my body, or it would take care of me. I overcame my lifelong fears and indifference to exercise. I got to cardiac-rehab faithfully, go to my gym every day I’m not in rehab, and walk up hills every day. I’m not doing one of those two things.

In the Spring, I will be back on my e-bike, sailing along those flat and beautiful country roads.

I learned more about love in this year of the pandemic. Maria and I, two independent and quirky people, were thrown together month after month in confining and sometimes tense ways that were new to us and our marriage.

We disagreed more, fought more, stung each other more. And loved each other more. Our relationship deepened and grew as we learned together how to live in new and different ways, how to use our creativity for good,  how to nourish our faith and patience, and to trust one another even more.

We used our creativity to find new things to do, new games to play, new ways to love, new things to cook and eat, new rides to take together out into the world,  new ways to walk with and talk to our friends, even if we couldn’t get out of our car.

For me, writing took center stage. So did my photography.

Writing about politics helped me to do good for people, forced me to think clearly about my own values, reinforced my love of the kind of journalism that barely exists anymore.

I loved remembering that I was good at it. I don’t need to be right, just honest and thoughtful.

I received more and uglier hate mail that I have received in my decades of writing online, and I learned to deal with it by not dealing with it – ignore it, use it as a chance to develop my humor, reinforce my determination, to tell the truth as I see it.

It really did make me stronger. I will never be silenced by people like that.

You can judge a person by the people who support him, and in the era of Trump, our country has gotten sick. You can’t fix something you can’t see or understand. I’m hopeful.

I know a lot of people who despair about America and who are locked into fear and doom. 2020 taught me not to think that way. Anything thing is possible; the story of the future is yet to be written.

And it’s up to us to write it, not the pundits on cable news.

I will continue to take Teddy Roosevelt’s advice. I happy to discover him as a thinker of directness and a lot of truth:

This is my country,  good and bad, blue or red, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. The only label I accept these days is American, and I have just as much right to the title as anyone.

“Here is your country,” said Roosevelt. “Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.”