It may still be the bleak midwinter of the Christmas carols (see the post on Turning Corners), but new year’s day always makes me feel I should turn over some sort of new leaf, as if spring is already stirring under the snow.
The neoclassical image of Janus is a pretty apt icon for my new year’s day. For one thing, I looked back on the ‘year of firsts’ without Timothy as it transitioned to a ‘year of first anniversaries’ — of meaningful days I had marked without my darling. In some ways, I could say I was qualitatively ‘happier’ than I’d been a year ago: this year’s Christmas tree, commemorated in the ornament book, was splashed by far fewer tears as I decorated it. The two wonderful weeks in England, among old friends and new writing pals, had — as it always does — replenished my creative well, and made me deeply grateful for my craft.
In the turn-of-year present, I spent the last Sunday of the old year meditatively mooching around the Seattle Art Museum. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the American collection, amused by an exhibit on porcelain, and delighted by the Native American galleries (so many items reminded me of art my own parents collected in Alaska and Canada, years ago).
I treated myself to a good dinner, and then walked through the misty dark to attend the year’s last Compline service at St Mark’s Episcopal cathedral. I’d been listening to this meditative sung service for much of 2019: it felt right to close out the year hearing the voices live.
And as I walked into the lofty space — so modern where Wells Cathedral was so essentially medieval — I was literally stopped in my tracks by what I heard. The choir, still wearing civvies and huddled under a microphone, was practicing Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque. Timothy and I had heard about it when the composer spoke at TED, and were moved by the devotion of the singers as much as the beauty of the music.
Timothy was there beside me in that moment, as sure as anything.
Once back home, I spent a long night drawing complex project schematics and schedules of “Frogs to Consume in 2020” for my calendar. I doodled mind-maps of happy projects I want to undertake just because I want to. I already picture a photo book with Timothy’s name on it, and perhaps some celebrations honoring the life of his father and mine, both of whom died five years ago in 2015. There will be time for memories, and time for new leaves.
In the end, Tiomkin and I spent new year’s eve hunkered down by the James Bond fireplace, contemplating the tomorrow promised by the next day’s dawn.