Beginning, Gently

Floating into the New Year

If 2021 was my year of waiting, 2022 was the finally. The first deep breath. The sweet, chaotic relief of sudden movement, like breaking out into a run after a year’s rest. It was a year of transition, of transformation. Yet, still, I end it quietly.

It’s New Year’s Day and I don’t want to break out into song. I want to be still, to lie flat on the surface of my life, and feel the rhythm of the waves. Why must we think in terms of the things we carry? What about what carries us? I have been kept afloat by a million joyful moments, stacked like pillows under a tightrope. Sparks of love. A morning coffee. Walks among trees. Words in divine order. No matter how many stars fall from the sky, or how many sunbeams are hidden by clouds, there is always magic, waiting to kiss the air.

I am better than I was, and I will be better than I am. This I know.

by Christine Sedgwick

A poem by Jane Hirshfield, “Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Remain to Me”:

The world asks, as it asks daily: 
And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured?

I count, this first day of another year, what remains. 
I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands. 

Can admire with two eyes the mountain, 
actual, recalcitrant, shuffling its pebbles, sheltering foxes and beetles.

Can make black-eyed peas and collards.
Can make, from last year’s late-ripening persimmons, a pudding.

Can climb a stepladder, change the bulb in a track light.

For four years, I woke each day first to the mountain, 
then to the question.

The feet of the new sufferings followed the feet of the old, 
and still they surprised.

I brought salt, brought oil, to the question. Brought sweet tea, 
brought postcards and stamps. For four years, each day, something.

Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace. 
Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder. 

Today, I woke without answer. 

The day answers, unpockets a thought from a friend

don't despair of this falling world, not yet

didn't it give you the asking

I have been wary of New Year’s resolutions in recent years, mostly because they are often grandiose in nature and show how little I pay attention to myself. This year, I am thinking of the things that have brought me unconditional joy in the past 365 days and looking for ways to develop those further. I want to give appreciation and attention, to both give myself and the people I love the gift of relief. How we crave it these days.

While resolutions can sometimes grow suffocating, I, too, feel that deep sense of possibility that strikes the earth when the clock turns to midnight. Even the oldest souls feel youthful — oh, there is so much time! Though the world grows louder every year, I have come to cherish the quiet years. In 2022, I built a life with my bare hands. I graduated, started a new job, settled into a life abroad. I leave the year with eyes wide open. Now, I can rest. I can drink from the cup, the clay has finally dried. I may not be proud, yet — it’s a bit wobbly, still — but I am content. It holds my tea and keeps it warm. And when the time comes, I will try again. And again. And again.

A poem by James Crews, “New Year’s Day”:

In what we call the here and now, 
wind tosses the tops of bare trees,
bends the pines almost to their knees. 
I see this only when the blue of dawn
seeps into the sky, and darkness agrees
to be overtaken by this new light. 
So much of our healing stays hidden, 
happens in the slim gaps between 
one moment and the next. And when 
we notice it, feel ourselves pulled
by the winds of attention, what balm 
the world spreads on our wounds, 
skin stitching itself back together again. 

Despite so much having entered and left my life this past year, I look back and don’t see much difference. The same things bring me joy, the same things make me cry. Perhaps I am a little stronger, a little more resilient. I know I will realise how in the smaller moments. Life will slow down as I move further into my twenties, and I don’t expect an annual display of radical change. I know that change will happen regardless as time moves forward, and one day I will look back and realise how far I’ve come. Resolutions and solid goals can be helpful for some, but they usually cause me to finish the year in mourning rather than in gratitude. Instead, I’m simply going to pay attention, bask myself in what I have rather than search for what I don’t. Of course, there are things I hope to do someday — get published, start dating, travel to X and Y — and I will work towards them, in whatever way the circumstances allow me to. I want to build trust with the world around me.

When I left home after the holidays last January, I cried for days. I missed my family, my best friend, the familiarity of Target and Trader Joe’s. I leaned into that craving — found familiarity in my local bookstore, made friends with neighbors and classmates. I went home in May and came back in July, and only cried a little bit at the airport. Mostly out of gratitude. I left my apartment keys with a good friend and she bought me flowers to come home to. I was overcome with a sense of belonging. There was nothing to mourn. I had everything I needed. It sustained me until I returned home again, with a heightened sense of appreciation. It is in those moments, the moments of leaving, where I see the most growth. I’ve been thinking about that as I leave this year behind. I am equally grateful for the big things and the in-betweens, and forgiving of the times I’ve fallen short. We’ll move on, regardless. Time waits for no one. There is an infinite supply of possibilities — of hope, of chance — to be discovered.

“To the New Year” by W.S. Merwin:

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

---

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season. The New Year can be overwhelming for some, so I hope you’ve been paying attention to yourself and moving forward in the best way you can. I leave home on Thursday after six weeks, and am just spending time with the people I love. There has been a lot of good conversation and laughter.

I’ve done something new this year and finally made a Goodreads! I’m still filling it up, but I’m excited to engage with my friends and keep better track of what I read. If you’re a paying subscriber to Devotions, look out for a yearly reading wrap-up in your inboxes later this week :-)

Also, here is my 2022 playlist.

May this year bring you many little moments of delight and wonder. Thank you for being here.

<3

Tara