02.01.2011

the new year

Managed to define a couple of things for myself recently, concerning the celebrations of Christmas and the New Year. Contemplations which may, of course, once being made and conceded, be immediately broken, but it feels good nonetheless to have realised them, if only at least temporarily.

You see a few years ago I realised that this time, this late December early January time of fallowness…time to sleep, read, process, plan, mourn, recover, gather strength…is very important to me, quite crucial in fact to my mental health and to the health of the up-coming year. I love the fact that we have a summer break, a Christmas holidays and all of that, at the end of a year and the beginning of a year…it seems right…better than in Europe where you are still in the middle of the year’s work, in the middle of the working year that is…ours is neater and works much better.

You end the year’s work, have a break, even if it is short, or if you are lucky a summer holiday, then the new year starts and a new year of work starts. It’s very clean and clear. So, now to the recent realisations. One, after seeing a live performance of the Messiah quite close to Christmas last year, is that going to a musical celebration like that is a very good version of some kind of Christmas recognition for me. In my life, Christmas is about family and friends, about celebrating and making and giving…giving food, sharing food, looking after those around me if I can, contacting people, holding out a hand. And so, the church, or organised religion, has for a long time been very low in the radar at Christmas time (and even less significant at other times of the year except perhaps Easter, where I do intend to try the musical experiment again). But seeing the Messiah was good. It was a nod to religion, and it l felt nice to spend those few hours, in a secular context, thinking about Jesus and religion and Jerusalem and where Christmas actually came from.

The second realisation was about New Year, and was that it IS a significant time for me, I DO measure my life by years (and this is perhaps even more the case because of the Southern Hemisphere match-up mentioned above) by what happens in a year, how those years pass, how those years feel. It is as if we, in the Southern Hemisphere, are really given the chance to start again, to have a new start, by the way our new year falls. And perhaps because of all this, it’s hard to ignore it. So I realised that I need to mark it, that for me, pretending it isn’t, ignoring it, doesn’t really work, because in my mind and soul and body it IS a new year, it is happening and in some way it needs to be honoured. Writing resolutions in my diary isn’t enough, because I tried that last year…it needs to be something public, something about us all, in the place we are in, marking the shift together, and maybe talking about it a bit too. So this year it was spent on the beach, relaxed, watching fireworks, fires, people laughing and dancing, hearing the sea, feeling the darkness and the light. And it was better, and for that I am grateful.

And so, those tasks accomplished, now I am lying fallow, dreaming and planning for the year ahead, processing the year that has been, sleeping, reading and knitting, making bread, walking, watching films, swimming and, most pleasurably of all, wasting time. Just a bit.