twenty-ten. twenty-ten. it had a nice ring to it. straight and compact, neat and clean. just so.

but twenty-eleven. twenty-eleven. feels a little wild and unpredictable...i like it.


i sit here in my old room, a room i lived out of for eighteen years. a small howard miller clock is ticking comfortingly on the desk next to me. my dad is shuffling through papers in the room next door. my mom is downstairs mixing together an apple cake for tomorrow's new year's eve party. seventeen people! her friends, our family. i hadn't planned to be here tonight; i'd planned to be back in california. but the fates conspired to keep me grounded in chicago this year, and i'm breathing in what is and exhaling expectations. i'm grateful to be here. i can help my mom bake cakes, i can see family friends that i haven't seen in a long time, and i can help to create warm family memories that'll feed us all when we're at a distance again.


as manufactured as it may be to see december 31st as any sort of demarcation line, i do believe in the energy shift that accompanies the birth of a 'new year.' i have a vague internal catalog that's filled in with memories and expectations and feelings, and it opens fully at certain times of the year and spills its contents out. new years eve is one of those times. each new year's eve, i journey through the late december pages of that catalog. 


i am  standing outside on a dark street and the air is moist from melting snow. it's cool, but not cold like it had been. windy. i'm in wheaton, illinois where my grandmother is living...and i'm young. and i'm sad because i'm aware of the transience of the moment...the moment wherein my mom and aunts and grandma and cousins are all together in my grandma's warm little house, laughing and sitting on the skinny metal chairs in her kitchen.  

now i'm sitting on a hotel bed in la quinta inn. i'm in college, i think, one of my earlier years. but i'm home for the holiday. we've got beer in the bathtub and about twenty people in the room. conversations are loud and despite the fact that my good friends are all in the room, i feel alone. the ball drops and everyone kisses someone else while i sit with my hands on my lap, looking down, knowing that i won't always feel so out of place. 

now i'm on navy pier. wearing a handmade crown. my hand is in matt's and we're walking together through the crowds of loud revelers to the end of the dock. i know he feels as out of place in the chaos as i do, and i squeeze his hand, looking forward to getting back to the quiet apartment where we're staying for the night. i don't feel the fleetingness in this memory, i felt at home and safe. the fireworks spark over the lake and we're quiet, calm together. breathing in the cold night air. 

short, fragmented memories of other new years eves. going to bed at 11:00 pm despite my family's protestations. eating terribly expensive and unsatisfying food with kevin at the moustache cafe in...vancouver? then heading straight for the nearest pub and getting french fries and beers to fill our tummies and to cheers the passing year. breaking small ceramic plates at a height and then letting them fall to the ground...releasing the old and welcoming in the new. tossing zircon dust out into the pacific ocean at goat rock, setting intentions to heal and accept. 

the past year has been one of creative growth, building confident strength, engagement with community and the opening of myself up more genuinely to that which surrounds me. this past year, i learned that my love can survive harsh conditions, and that its mechanism for said survival is transformation. we assume a certain result from loving...but sometimes love asks of us what we least expect and deprives us of what we think we need. this past year, love asked me to let go of a comfortable but ill-fitting structure that i'd made into a home and to take a leap into the great unknown. i still can summon the pain of the detachment from that comfort and the fear i felt standing at the ledge, exposed and alone. but then, the leap. it was silent but for the air rushing past my ears. my arms outstretched, i caught a current  like a bird in flight. i had no direction nor destination, just presence and awareness, complete immersion in the moment and the sensations at hand...faithful that i was headed exactly where i needed to be heading...

as i enter this new year, i am still in flight. sometimes going with a flock, oftentimes alone. but in all respects, keeping my wings outstretched and my heart open, following my true north...