A Vision of 2020

What a handsome number, 2020.  Balanced. Strong. Sturdy. And clear, as in perfect vision.  

Generous, too, throwing us a bonus day. I must admit, this leap year makes me want to leap - not just into a new year, but a new decade. 

What illuminates this whole coming year is the celebration of women and our 100th year anniversary, in this country, of obtaining the right to vote.  It is enough to make me pause.  I mean, it is also the 25th anniversary of my life with my husband, which means that women have been voting only 4 times as long as I have been swimming in this happiness.  Incredible.

I'm informally, but with great intention, dubbing this formidable year the Year of the Woman. Not because I think women need some trite recognition, but because I think women are going to move in this year in impressive, mighty, and unexpected ways.  On the shoulders of suffragists who persisted for decades through disappointment, privation and jail before their vision became a vote, the movement toward light and strength now has, at last, momentum beyond stopping. 

I want to plant the Ibu Movement firmly in that momentum and let the celebration of our suffrage incite a movement toward justice for women around the world, where rights are still few.  I want to light up the astounding strength and skills and resilience of women in Africa, Asia, South America, the MidEast; well, everywhere.

I'm waking to something new this morning.  2020 vision. An unstoppable hope that women in villages around the world will rise to vote not only in polls, but in their homes, their families, their work; voting on what matters to them most - respect, dignity, choice, love, learning - and voting on it with their whole lives. 

Here's to MMXX!  May the Twenties roar again!!  

Susan Hull Walker