How about this?  This year’s last essay on the last day of the year!  It is a transition time!  Betwixt and Between!  Transitioning reminds me of the Star Trek method of travel.  Teleporting, however, provides rapid transit from one place to another while this year has required mental and emotional transitions at a slightly slower pace.  As a comment for 2020 ---- I’ll just quote Charlie Brown:  “ARRRRGGGGGHHH”!  And 2021 -----will hopefully be a TA-DA as we land on our feet!

Actually “new years” occur at different times (depending on the cultures) around the world.  The Jewish New Year begins in the fall, usually September I believe.  Then Samhain, our Halloween, was the Celtic New Year --- harvest time.  The general new year around the world is January 1^st .  Tet is the Asian new year in February, with a different symbol for each year --- a kind of Zodiac ---- the Year of the Horse or the Year of the Rat.  The Christian Calendar puts the new church year at the beginning of Advent; four weeks before Christmas.  We all crave new beginnings and carve them into our calendars whether of stone, paper or IPhone.  The Roman calendar depicted the god Janus – a two-faced deity who looked back to the old year while also looking ahead into the new, as we humans tend to do.

Tonight is New Year’s Eve and that old song is running through my head ----- “What are you doin’ New Years?  New Years Eve?”  Actually we are doing very little as is appropriate right now.  We plan a comfortable evening with hot chocolate or eggnog, shrimp cocktail, maybe a little conversation and a bit of TV until we get too sleepy to stay up.  Forty years ago this would have sounded pretty dull.  Now it sounds perfect.  My brother, Ken, would be amused.

I was always a bit miffed because I was considered too young for Ken’s and Lois’s New Year’s Eve parties.  Then when I was of an age to go, they stopped having them!   I can’t say that I’ve really been deprived though; Kerm and I have been through 56 New Year’s Eves.   We’ve attended parties and we’ve given parties.  One gala event that sticks in my mind was early in our marriage.  We invited a young singles group, all in their twenties and not much younger than we were to join us on New Year’s Eve.   Our wonderful old rented farm house,  had a “summer kitchen”, attached to the main kitchen by an enclosed porch.   Originally used for summer cooking and canning, during our tenure, it was a play room for our toddlers and, on occasion, a party room.  It had a huge walk-in fireplace for heat.  The weather was unusually mild that year, and the room was quite usable with doors open into the house.  We did charades, made balloon animals, chatted and laughed a lot.  My feelings cup, as a novice party-giver, was overflowing when one guest told us he had been in Paris for New Year’s Eve the year before ---- but had more fun at our party.   Maybe it was the cookies.

Many years later, our sons were college-age; old enough to have their own party ---- at our house.  Kerm and I decided we’d go out for a while; games of Risk or D&D could get pretty vociferous.  Do you know that, without prior planning, nothing much is open on New Year’s Eve?  Most places offer a package for the evening or weekend and are not welcoming people who just wish to drop in.  We drove around Ithaca for awhile and finally ended up at Purity Ice Cream, had milkshakes --- and went home to join in the celebratory din of college kids.

Then perhaps you remember the turn-of-the-century (1999 into 2000) when everyone feared the collapse of life as we know it?   People were sure that computer systems would crash and that many things including utilities would come to a grinding halt.   There were anxiety-driven groups who tried to prepare as though humanity would need to begin all over again.  One of our sons now lives in a house that was part of a rural enclave designed for that very time with all sorts of back-to-the-earth plans.   Most of the original residents have now moved elsewhere; hopefully wiser, if a bit chagrined.   

That stellar year, we opted for a quiet and fearless (though we were a bit curious) evening at home.  I managed to stay awake long enough to watch the fireworks displays from New Zealand to  NYC; from the Sydney Opera House to the Eiffel Tower.  Instead of apprehension, there was a feeling of a world celebration ----with perhaps a bit of relief that not a single network or facility fell apart as expected by the doom-mongers.   One year flowed smoothly into the next year without more than normal fanfare.

Moving into a new year doesn’t necessarily change life a whole lot.  However, it is human nature to like clear endings and fresh beginnings even if they are mostly imaginary.    So --- we celebrate the end of 2020, with perhaps, a sigh of relief ---- and have high hopes for 2021.  Hope is a good thing!  We should take every opportunity to enjoy the wonderful, good, fun things in life; friends, art, nature, music, dancing……!    Appreciation and gratitude strengthen us for the down times that are also a part of life.  In this household, we believe in planning for the future and in maintaining our hope that the future will be one in which we can thrive gladly and be of use.

Of course, this year, parties are definitely not encouraged.  But that is OK; I have come to appreciate quiet and the space in which to think: What can we take with us from this unusual year?  What would we like to find in the year to come?  Do we have relationships that need repair?  Are we living according to our own standards?  I hope we wish for more than a return to “normal”.  What have we learned that will make life better in 2021?  A few things pop into my mind: 1) how much I’ve enjoyed not running hither and yon, even if the running is for very good reasons.  I have appreciated less of the stressful getting ready for something. 2) I have found I need fewer new clothes; somehow what I wear has become less important.  And I’ve been wearing all my odd socks.  Who is going to notice??? 3) We’ve all discovered that we can use technology for meetings, saving both time and gasoline.  I think many people will continue to work remotely.  We have learned a new way of accomplishing things.

I have also noted that with this year’s distancing, we are all more concerned with how the people around us are coping.  “How are you” is something we now ask with sincerity and real interest in the answer.     If we have managed to maintain contact and become more aware of each other, this lesson needs to remain with us.  At the same time, we miss and crave the closeness of our small groups whether they are Bible studies or pinochle friends or just Sunday brunchers.  We need friends with whom we can be open, honest and share where we are and what we need.  Perhaps we will now be better at balancing.

As I’ve gotten older I have noticed an annoying need to make several small transitions/day.  I can no longer come home from shopping and leap into baking or cleaning.  I have a need to sit down and allow my mind to adjust from the shopping mode to whatever I wish to do next.  I need some time to move my focus and restore my energies; sort of like changing from reading glasses to those that let us see at a distance.  If I try to accomplish something without this interval, my efforts may well illustrate Murphy’s Law ---- If anything can go wrong, it will!  So along with the major transitions, like a new year, I experience mini-transitions as part of every day.

We are now transitioning into more light and probably more winter.  The Solstice is past and the light will slowly begin to increase in another week or so.  Tomorrow, we step into January with all its potential for snow and cold (even as it rains tonight).  It will be boots and mittens weather for the next two or three months.  And when the Christmas tree goes down, plugging in my “Happy Light” again will be a priority.  Even in this traumatic year just past though, the months have seemingly flown by, so I am sure that spring and planting season will be coming sooner than we can imagine.  I like this thought about each new year from poet, Ranier Maria Rilke*: “And now let us welcome a new year, full of things that have never been.”   Happy New Year to you with wishes that it may be a year with fewer troubles and a multitude of blessings!

Carol may be reached at: carol42wilde@htva.net.

*Rainer Maria Rilke ---an Austrian poet and novelist with a very long name: Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke but better known by Rainer.  1875-1926.