Tomorrow we shall sing “The old year now away is fled, the new year it is entered.” And what an old year. What a horrible old year.
It was no 2012/2013 by any means. But it was a year in which I saw some of the worst of human beings – torches in the streets, a Nazi on the corner, a pall upon the nation. It was a year in which I marched in the streets, resisted however I could, and felt drained by the enormity of it all. It was a year in which my dream stopped short of reality and I had to stop. Reconfigure. Figure out a new dream.
I have been fortunate in my life and have held many jobs that spoke to my soul. This year I had to give one up because the swamp – it had to be drained. Yet I received some validation for all I had worked for, and landed on my feet thanks to a dear friend who was being drained as well.
This is a brave new world for me. I have had to put my writing, my research, and my dream of finishing the next book on hold for a time. But at least I can say “next book.” Thanks to another dear friend, the first one is to be a reality in the new year. It still feels unreal to me – me, whose main work has ever been ephemeral. But this will be real. Tangible. Knowable. I only wish it had come a few years before so that the two people who made it possible – made me possible – could have seen it.
My hope is that I can regroup and continue my writing. It is a story that must be told, and I must be the one to tell it. What form it will take, I do not yet know. But I vow to see it through.
So a toast to the old and a hope for the new. Let us hang sorrow and cast care away.
God send us a happy new year.
