It always feels to me as if the week between twinkling lights on a tree and a ball dropping from the sky is a kind of breath held; a gully demarcating a just-been and an about-to-be. A floating of sorts that I’ve often felt as a weird toggle between relaxing and anticipation. Things are kind of slow, then the calendar clicks over into new action. Overall it feels randomn to me that the anticipation of a new year, marked by this 1 January, can shovel in a whole bunch of expectations under the label resolutions, which is a word I dislike about as much as I do diets. Mostly because both of those things suggest—to me anyway—a set of expectations to achieve some things that are deficient in my life and will take some focused concentration to achieve. It’s not that I’m against focus or concentration but I don’t do particularly well with dictums, even if I’m the one who has come up with them.

Probably it’s just the actual word resolution I’m reacting to given there are some things I’d like to bring back around in the coming amount of months. I’m looking at you, three pages of writing in the morning rather than my drift into maybe a page; daily meditations that are in fact meditating rather than sitting and thinking with my eyes closed for a certain amount of minutes; swimming on the weekly; bye-bye sugar. None of those things are particularly painful. In fact, once the groove is back I know they all feel really excellent in their own special way. I know that because they’re all things that have been a part of my life in the not-that-distant past.

Yet this funny gully time is when my brain says, sure, sure, next week you can really focus on all that. This is just a floaty week. The riverbed emptying out a bit to make way for whatever is about to roll in. There are for sure some shiny bits buried in the silt, some sharp stuff I’m still stepping on, none of it left behind. This holiday was lit with poignant shadows and tender brights. The year past felt fully split down the middle: Everything up to July. Everything after July. Mish-mash, hodge-podge. Actual stage lights caught real joy and fun just outside a dark, hushed room where a living person I loved so so much ended. Knowing where to look became the trick. Developing some sort of starfish-eyes capability to see the shiny object but also catch the things moving in the dark as well. Much respect for both.

I mean, global news: terrifying, brutal, enraging, heartbreaking, frustrating AF. National moments: terrifying, dark, brutal, enraging, heartbreaking, frustrating AF. Bring the view in. Put on my headphones and find the sounds I discovered this year that resurrected my thirteen-year-old rock’n’roll fangirl fifty years on so I could roll around in that passion again, understand how much I love the camaraderie and libido of a band’s bond (with each other and their fans), and scare the beejesus out of the cats by dancing weirdly and wildly around the apartment. The headphones come off and the world is still there. Both the choice of joy and the acknowledgment of awfulness move in the same room. Pack into the same satchel. A Mary Poppins carpetbag filled with dark treats and delightful tricks. Every year past is in there along with the look-forward to moments ahead. For instance, when it comes to writing, a friend introduced me to the Substack Story Club with George Saunders. A fantastic place for ideas from an author who is as generous as he is brilliant and charismatic. There’s writer Jami Attenberg and her Craft Talk (along with her new&excellent 52 Project) who I’ve been involved with for the past many months. These people make me feel less alone in my endeavor to keep-on-keepin’ on when it comes to putting words on a page. There are all the books near my bed that I can’t wait to read. Escapism at its finest. Podcasts that pull me in and seasons of story-time on the TV.

I have two pendants on a chain around my neck: Memento Mori (remember you must die) and Memento Vivere (remember to live). No possibility of one without the other. So stepping into 2024, they jangle along at my breastbone, I rub them like a genie might appear. The genie will have to be me. So fine. I’ll step through the neck of the bottle, cross the gully into the new year, and see what happens. Wishing you all a great transfer from this into the next.