A Day in the Life 2026

Up at three AM on January 3, one of my bad nights, with the Super Wolf Moon glowing so brightly through the shades that I just have to look. The snow is that neon blue color, decorated with gold glitter. Black tree trunk shadows crisscross the yard; it’s easy to see the sinuous dark line of the brook down below. The moon is titanium white.

Lying awake, I was thinking that I treasure the opportunity to be active in Joshua’s Trust, just like I treasure this view. And that looking at America’s 2026 schedule, I think this feels like it might be a consequential year. It’s the 250^th anniversary of 1776, and possibly a moon mission, followed by the mid-term elections.

I wake again at six – to war. Trump has attacked Venezuela.

In late January, thoughts turn to Martin Luther King, Jr. and thus to peaceful positive activism. Somebody once said, “You’re either an activist or an inactivist.”  Together in Joshua’s Trust, we get a lot done. We now conserve more than 5000 acres of wildlands, giving nature the chance to adapt to the coming storms. That’s a good reason for all of us to treasure the Trust. “Occasionally in life one develops a conviction so precious and meaningful that he will stand on it till the end”, said Martin. My Joshua’s Trust stewardship work is one of the things in life I’m most proud of. So, here’s to Sam Dodd and Isabelle Atwood, David Hankins, Dorothy Goodwin and Rudy Favretti and the rest who made a commitment and acted, began this organization.

I was an activist at UConn at that same time, the late ‘60s. It wasn’t hard to protest when if you left school, you would be drafted to fight in an unwinnable immoral war. My only regret is that I didn’t get arrested. I knew it wouldn’t have made a difference, but it would have to me. The whole university went on strike in 1970 after Kent State’s students were killed that May. Finals were cancelled. In a decidedly non-activist move, a bunch of us hitchhiked to Martha’s Vineyard for the week and caroused.

This afternoon, two does are sleeping near the brook in plain sight. They don’t even get up when I dump the compost and say hello in my bad pronunciation of deer speech. Coyotes ran and played down there on New Year’s Eve. I can’t walk by my sliding glass door without looking out, for fear of missing something. In winter with its bare trees, one can see things that may have been hidden before, things that may have been mere guesses.  

One thing I see is that consequential year looming, one in which we will need joy and confidence for the days to come. “We must walk in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.” Martin again. “Join with the Earth and each other…join together as many and diverse expressions of the loving mystery, for the healing of the Earth and the renewal of all life.” 

Since its beginnings, many people have donated or sold land to Joshua’s Trust and many more have volunteered. “Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, be a trail”: more MLK. I’m a trail, and I think I’m a pretty good trail. I was a conservation property steward for a decade. I’ve led a bunch of hikes and done what I could to increase enthusiasm for local conservation. I write for the newsletter and the blog. Do the same for Trout Unlimited. The nature stuff is my sphere. You can act too, truly. We’d love to turn you on. Be an activist in your chosen arena.

Today slips away. Late afternoon turns to dusk, and one last fiery orange jet contrail crosses the western sky. The wind has laid down; snow is melting into the aquifer for next summer’s fulfillment. Birds and squirrels have gone home. Night falls quietly. Tomorrow is a chance to start again.

-George Jacobi