Happy

Still a few grains of sand left in the hourglass of 2022 here in Portland. I know some of you have long since rung the bell, lifted the glass, shouted the words, and sang the song. Many more are probably in bed. And for a few of you, it's tomorrow and you've already gotten up, taken aspirin, taken a piss, made coffee, taken a shit, and wondered what you did last night that you should have the words Never Say Die written on your arm in red sharpie. (Or is it blood? And why is there cinnamon all over the toilet seat? Where the hell is the cat?)

The New Year has always been my favorite holiday, much to the surprise of nearly everyone I mention this to, the tendency being to believe that I like Halloween best because I like crows and dead things. And while it's true that I sincerely appreciate a holiday that invites an annual celebration and display of such things by billions of others, it's really the New Years celebration that fills me with the most emotion.

Time speeds and slows and weaves and rolls on its own accord and doesn't give two shits about the clocks and calendars we shackle to it to entertain our illusion of control. However, there are seasonal cycles here on Earth. I appreciate the holiday's proximity to the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, and the accompanying celebration that brings people together with mutual, if temporary, hopes of prosperity and good will towards all. The midnight racket on the Calendar New Year makes my heart swell and my breath catch and brings tears to my eyes. Hard not to love best something that does that to you.

I will spare us the monotonous iterations of how another year has come to a close, thus allowing us to put bygones and mistakes behind us (it's a new beginning!), yada yada blah blah blah. A date on the calendar will not stop the past from affecting our future. Only hard work and therapy can put a dent in that pattern, and even then, there is no damming the stream.

But.

There is always...

...room for gratitude and reflection. That being said, mush mush mush, I am glad to know all of you, glad to have this community that supports my creativity. Our creativity! And with money that we all deserve to be earning much more of than we probably ever will in our lifetimes. You never cease to inspire me and encourage me with what you share and what you say. I drink a cup of kindness to all of you!

(Even you. You know who you are. Jerk.)

Happy New Year, friends.

_{All pictures and words copyright Anna Horvitz (me) and cannot be used without my consent.}