Today is the last day of 2020.
Tomorrow we get a whole new year.
According, that is, to the calendar I bought yesterday.
The year could have started at any point in our orbit around the sun. Why not choose something tangible or natural? The Israelites used the barley harvest and a new moon. And while we haven’t unearthed any discarded dayplanners from Stonehenge, I’m guessing its builders marked the end and beginning of years with the limits of the sun. We were so close to making sense ourselves, ripping off our last calendar page just ten days (or nine, depending on the bonus quarter day) after solstice.
Last year, I bought a set of science books for us but couldn’t get past the first few pages when the highly acclaimed author asserted that our calendar has twelve months because there are twelve lunar cycles in a year. Apart from the fact that fifty-two weeks divided by four week periods of a waxing and waning moon is thirteen, our particular calendar – the one that’s come to dominate – is the hodge-podge of ego, the same reason Oct(8)ober is the tenth month. Julius and Augustus are planted smack in the middle of everyone’s year, but finding man’s self- absorbtion at the center of our most basic constructs is as dependable as the progress of the moon, the stars across the sky, the seasons in turn.
So it is with much ego and hope in myself that I fondly tie ribbons around what I’m keeping, box up and tuck away what I’m obliged to, and bin or burn the parts I’m allowed to forget: 2020 in palatable form.
In my construct, a new start means new paper.
This is the first blackened page of my newest acquisition, part of it anyway, one of six new journals I bought yesterday…
oh, and the writing implements…but that’s another post
…a planner that I promptly relieved of its obsolete 2020 pages
…a notebook for finishing (see note about ego and hope above) the memoir I’ve been wrestling with since the summer of 2011. I’m sure it’s the journal; I should have stashed those song lyrics and scraps of memories among the pages of a journal instead of a folder- no room for breath or expansion in those.
…three lined A5s, saddle stitched with soft covers for when I can’t go on without the rush of a new beginning. Are these small notebooks destined to return to the shelf with a handful of pages filled in, unfit for another new beginning yet too little potential for an excellent end? Most likely. Like so many old boyfriends, they will litter my shelves until I build up the nerve to rip out the remnants and make them into kindling for new fires.
…and last, but with the best chance aspirations, is my riskiest set of pages. I found my way, over the course of several years, to a very particular type of notebook: a certain binding (small, even spiral), a certain size (six by eight inches), a reassuring strength to the cover, just the right weight and number of pages. After a solid run of filling these up back to back for years, I somehow lost my way. I was wooed by the sleek moleskines with their sophisticated lines, perfect for school subjects, but too thin and precious for my random collection of thoughts. I was seduced by yellow legal pads, perfect for planning out projects, but too linear and disposable to serve as collection places, record keepers, the stabilizer I require. The horrifying result has me drowning in an avalanche of desperate organization attempts, an overabundance of inadequacy. Confronting the mountain of ill-fitting pulp, I resolved to return to my old stand-by. That resolve got me to the journal aisle. My picky design sensibilities made me second guess my options.
Perhaps a slightly different version will do. A sacrifice of increased girth is offset by pockets for stashing little bits (and, oh, how I love to stash delightful and cumbersome bits). The addition of an elastic will accentuate the beginning and end of each encounter (and, oh, how I adore the beginnings of things, nearly as much as I adore the end of them). Sections aren’t new to me, having both succeeded and failed in the past. The trick now is to get this notebook to succeed, and thus ensure my own success! Isn’t that how this works?
Then, I suppose, it all comes back to our definition of success.
At this point (as at all other points I notice upon reflection), the goal is to finish.
When I get to the end of 2021, will I have finished the year, or will it just be ending? 2020 is over, but there is nothing that feels complete – too many unrealized moments, too many events, people, life put on hold until…next year? But next year has its own list, its own hopes. If I cram my unfinished business into tomorrow, where will tomorrow’s business go? Perhaps I must reconsider busi-ness, allow dreams to be crystalized and packed into paperweight snowglobes – contained, tucked into yesterday’s still life, looking out as me as I move on with a new tomorrow. I’ve been speaking about the how the plan for 2021 is just the unaccomplished to do list from 2020. No more. 2021 is its own chapter.
Thank you, 2020, for your service.
Hello, 2021.
