On the Turning of the Year

I’m far better at getting up early than I am at staying up late.  That must be admitted.  But, that isn’t why I wanted, this year in particular, to participate in the tradition of welcoming the New Year at sunrise, instead of at midnight.

The symbolism may be a bit heavy handed, but I needed to see the turning of the year as the moment of light, not swathed in the depths of midnight.  I wanted a slow, quiet transition.  The explosive fireworks of abrupt conversion would not serve my purposes.

And so, before the sun made its gradual assent, Steve and I climbed the slopes of Tibidabo in order to witness its arrival.  It was there, in the beams of light that escaped through the clouds, that I greeted the new year, pregnant with possibilities.

I am not the same person I was on January 1, 2020.  All years change me.  But, the impact has been more dramatic this year, as the circumstances have been more extreme.

I don’t approach 2021 with any expectations of returning to that 2019 version of myself or the world.  I think we all are coming to understand that we will always carry 2020 with us.  

What I bring to this moment is a heart ready to embrace the way forward, regardless of what lies along it.  I am here to open my arms to changes within me, changes in our communal circumstances and changes in our collective choices.  

Those are not transitions that can be accessed in a incendiary moment of revelry.

They are slow.  

They are subtle.  

But, they are every bit as powerful as the sun that slips quietly over the horizon.

That was what I wanted this New Year.  I wanted to breathe into that susurrous passage that whispered of potential and potency.