I have nothing against the promise of a new year and a new decade, but this is a challenging and dark winter month all on its own. What if we didn’t fling ourselves full force into January?
I’m walking around the house surveying all the remnants of 2019. There is a pile on the corner of my work desk of mail and magazines including Christmas cards that have just recently been opened, three rolls of scotch tape, a tiny wrapped bar of soap, and a ceramic plate freshly dotted with toast crumbs. Piles of laundry lay on the floor from our trip—the suitcases still resting against the wall. There are piles of Christmas items littered about the house including several wooden Santas that have been shoved aside during the making of a fire and now stand a little askew on the brick hearth. A couple of glass jars on the woodstove hold the last of the bayberry scented candles. I have amassed a giant pile from the inside of my bathroom cabinet, too. I pulled it out and gathered it all together as a project I thought I would start today, but then decided it was better tackled later in January. There’s an even bigger pile in the garage of boxes and bags that need to go to the curb for pickup.
“Do you have any thoughts about the new year?” I say to my spouse Janyce on the morning of New Years’ Day while sitting in bed drinking coffee.
“I don’t know,”says Janyce. “Maybe to do my CPEs earlier in the year?”
“I feel a little bit blah today,” I say. “It’s so dark outside.”
“Yeah, me too,” she says. “I think it’s just post vacation re-entry.”
I was thinking about writing down my own resolutions in a fresh new planner after I sifted through email. My gmail account was full of vendors promising me things: learn to count your macros, lose weight for good, this is the year to finally master those habits. I could barely scroll through all the sales and offers to “buy this now”on Facebook and Instagram without the urge to whip out my credit card.
Of course, like everyone else, I am also planning new goals for this year. I like the feeling of the clean slate. My mom and I have shared several text conversations over the last few days inspired by the Instagram Account TrainwithJoan and her dramatic transformation at age 73 and we’re genuinely excited about our plans to walk the beach together in June. The tinywins text chat with my college girlfriends has been abuzz with healthy eating plans, and I was happy to find a three-day-a-week monthly challenge to ease into again on my Strava app. So I signed up.
“I’m going to do a little laundry first and then we can go on a hike,” says Janyce.
I decide to give up on the idea of tending to the piles and settle in the living room to watch the red squirrel from the window.
All morning, a single red squirrel has been very industrious, chasing the larger grey squirrels across the full expanse of the back yard, running back and forth with its bottle brush tail standing straight up and glowing a brilliant orange, lit by the sharp winter angle of the sun. I watch the squirrel quivering at the base of the bird feeder where black sunflower seeds have spilled over, grabbing one at a time and frantically running back to the opening it dug in the ground beneath the bottom of our garden shed.
“Oh, that little stinker,” says Janyce, looking out the window from where she is standing by the dryer folding clothes.
“He’s actually perched on the very top of the shed now,” she says.
We’re both mesmerized by the squirrel’s manic display of pent up winter energy. The same energy that I usually feel at this time after the Christmas holiday.
But something about plunging into the new decade at full force doesn’t feel right. It could be because I know of several people right now in my own personal sphere who are grappling with cancer, some newly diagnosed and others reaching the limits of their struggle.
I read a poem the other day by Rebecca Elson, a distinguished astronomer and a well-known poet who died much too young of this same disease. Her beautiful poem, with the briefest economy of words, paints a picture of the earth being held by space that is warped around it like a hand wrapping around a stone. The poem describes the illusion of force and reminds the reader that limits do in fact exist. I don’t know why, but I’m comforted by this poem right now and especially by her final stanza that reads: Where you, yourself the planet /Caught up in some geodesic dream /Might wake to feel it enfold your weight /And know there is, in fact, no falling.
I have nothing against the promise of a new year and a new decade, but this is a challenging and dark winter month all on its own. What if we didn’t fling ourselves full force into January?
I like the idea of being held a little longer in the space of the holidays, hanging around in the house with Janyce doing nothing much at all. A big part of this has to do with feeling lucky, and immensely grateful for the home and the life that I have.
It’s now late afternoon and we’re on the couch. Like most everything else today, we gave up on our grand plans for a long vigorous hike and instead strolled the short two-mile loop around the thawing pond of the Del Carte nature preserve with our dog. The daylight is slipping away, shadows growing long in the backyard and the sun is setting against the bare branches of the woods beyond the fence.
I reach past the glass of red wine on the tray for the popcorn bowl. The only light in the room is from our lit Christmas tree in the corner and the computer on the footrest. We’ve decided to spend what’s left of New Year’s Day lazing on the couch casting several missed episodes of the new L Word Generation Q on Showtime.
“God, I feel so old watching this,” I say.
“Who is that actress?” says Janyce. “Let me see the computer, I’m going to google her.”
“Oh, is that your new girlfriend now?” I say while grabbing another fistful of popcorn.
“See, how skinny Shane is, there is no body fat on her,” says Janyce.
“Yeah, but Shane has more arm muscles this year, honey, so it’s doable,” I say.
“I don’t know,” she says. “You don’t like me to get that skinny.”
“Damn, that’s a lot of underarm hair on Finley, I like it,” I say.
“Sorry honey, I’m just not that hairy,” says Janyce.
“Keep at it,” I say, and throw my outstretched legs onto her lap. “It’s good to have goals.”