With a New Year
Arrives Asian lady
Beetles alighting
Abundantly across
My apartment abode.
Signs of good luck or
Unexpected trouble
Arriving suddenly soon
Depends entirely on
My perspective’s reality.
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On the first day of 2025, I slept most of it. Either Exhaustion, Depression, Slothfulness, or Laziness was to blame. After weighing each agonizing choice upon which to build the next day, I decided to go with Exhaustion, for as of this typing, Rest has successfully been achieved. And I’m glad for it. It felt necessary. Tomorrow is a new day.
Exhaustion really is the heaviest cause, of course, and I’m not just saying that. Three weeks of driving an approximately 3,500 mile road trip has demonstrated that my body does not bounce back as quickly after sitting for extended periods of time, even if the books on audio stretched my mind. One gets older while the other gets younger.
Depression is a formidable seductress, and yet, I sometimes wonder why depression isn’t the default human condition of modernity. That it is actually the “normal.” How can I not feel some sort of hopelessness when waking on the first day of the new year to a “terror” attack, however defined, in New Orleans, on Bourbon Street, no less? I have to imagine there is a deep cut in all of us collectively when things like this happen, here or elsewhere. It would be despairing. But today, the winter road trip has invited some new perspectives, so thankfully, I remain hopeful overall. Despite it all.
Besides, the other reasons would only send me into spiraling shame and an overabundance of guilt, both of which are counterproductive to beginning the New Year optimistically despite whatever I did or did not do on the first day of 2025. Still, the chorus of judges that pass through the chambers of my mind bellow scoldings relentlessly at my complete lack of productivity (other than my tending to my little parrot, George, who shan’t be neglected even if I wanted to).
So today, I will blame Exhaustion for my stagnant start to this new year. Now that I am rested again, I take another breath…
P.S. Only to discover that I had inadvertently taken my nighttime medicines and supplements, which includes a sleeping aid, instead of my morning ones the first day of the new year. All of that ruminating on the meaning of my first day of 2025 was for naught. Nevertheless, I did learn that I’m framing this new year hopefully.
Dear Reader,
In one piece and in good spirits, I have returned from my Advent-ure, ba-da-bum-bum. After a hopeful pregnant pause, my words will again either freeze over like Mirror Lake in Lake Placid or pour forth like Niagara Falls. My prayer is for the latter. There’s a lot to say and limited time. Thoughts and words and verse richoceted off the window of my car as I drove, so I will sincerely do my best to write and share. The muse does not always visit me when I call to her. Nevertheless, I have come to discover that there are not many nobodies like me. A human being labeled by the world as a white, male, gay (queerly so), Christian (depending on who you ask), over-educated, under-employed, Gen-Xer human being. (That’s kind of a grungy thing to write, come to think of it.) Maybe people would be interested in reading about this odd duck. If so, you are kind to continue to read. In my youth, you could not force me to stop writing and posting. Overcome by my zeal and ideals, and my admittedly and repentedly, unabashed self-righteousness, I would blog every thought and declaration falling out of my cow-licked head. That was youth. And it was glorious while it lasted. Sometimes I miss that Chad of self-abandon. What a ride.
Drumroll please... Happy New Year! A lot of people are saying, promoting, promising, advocating a lot of things about this new year, and so, I will not be one of them. Let’s just say, I’m grateful for another day to be alive to try to live this crazy thing called life in the year 2025. Time is feeling much more fluid as I age, and some of these societal demarcations, like ringing in the new year, neither punctuate nor inspire me much anymore. Instead, I find myself weathering many seasons of ever-evolving challenges, growths, and changes. I do not know if the same has been true for you, but this season felt quiet like snow falling in a Vermont forest, whispers of a pause, of stillness, listening, hear, a time of rushing into warm embraces, to pull deep from roots, nourish with ancient wisdoms, honor those who have passed on, fortify with the love of those loved here, and for getting ready, getting prepared, for a new spring bloom blossoming. For everything, a season.
Love,
Chad
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