A New Year, Again

My favorite author, Jorge Luis Borges, writes that time is cyclical in nature: as we walk through the streets of the town where we were born, we relive the times that we have walked there before.

“Of course,” writes Borges about these moments, “they are repeated imprecisely; there are differences of emphasis, temperature, light and general physiological condition.” Each moment is similar, we tend to think, but no two moments are the same. Borges suggests otherwise. He argues that the number of possible iterations is not infinite – we can imagine two identical moments, in which all variables are precisely the same. “Is not one single repeated term sufficient to break down and confuse the series of time?” Borges asks. “Do not the fervent readers who surrender themselves to Shakespeare become, literally, Shakespeare?”

So, on New Year’s Eve: how many of us gather together to open a bottle of champagne, to dance, or cheer, or bring in the new year with a kiss? On New Year’s Eve I like to think of all the years before. I like to identify the differences of emphasis, the varying locations, and contexts, and moods. But I also like to think, a la Borges, that maybe my new year is not so unique. Maybe somewhere in the present, or somewhere in the past, this moment has occurred before. It makes the world seem somehow smaller and more beautiful.

This year I didn’t have a watch and so I would have missed midnight altogether, if a neighbor hadn’t shot a cannon at precisely 12 am.  Well, dear readers: did any of you have the same new year as me? Where were you on new year’s eve?

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Cheers!

Call me naive, but I still love New Year’s Eve.

I love the new year because it gives me an opportunity to reflect on the past.  In 2010 I moved to Boston, began a new job, biked 30 miles a day, swam in the Atlantic, spent time in the Northern Kingdom, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Minnesota, made my first vegan cookies, started to learn Russian, and started to take voice lessons. I reconnected with a whole lot of old friends (many of them unexpectedly in the street) and met some really amazing new people. One comfort I found while writing this list: even though I haven’t moved much, there’s been lots of opportunity for change.

I love the new year because it gives me an opportunity to think about the future. In the year to come I hope to leave the country (maybe a springtime trip to Rome?), start some independent collaborative projects, bake more bread, grow vegetables, learn to photoshop, and bike to the cape. I know that on TV the resolution ritual is a cycle of failure and self-loathing. But I think there’s a solution to that: I pick resolutions that I honestly want to keep. I usually do.

Finally, I love New Year’s because it’s the best party of the year.  Once during college, my family threw a big party with three generations of guests, a big bowl of punch, and a live band. (That party culminated with a midnight trek into a field and a mad dash straight into an electric fence.) Last year, I sat in front of a fireplace with my parents, drank hot chocolate, and went to bed long before the ball dropped. I love that New Year’s can be whatever I want it to be. In that way, I like to think, it’s a symbol of things to come.

Weather:
40 degrees and sunny!! It’s like spring!

Moods:
Hannah:  8 out of 10 on the ‘can’t get out of bed’ to ‘jumping for joy’ scale. Looking forward to the weekend.
Anna: 3 out of 10. So much to do, so little time!

 

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