Here is the timeless time, between the done-up festivities and the stark washed slate. Shimmer of ribbon and old records fades, fizz goes flat in the bottle. If I’m honest, it knocks the air out of me, a little. Here is the time of waiting until the year’s numeral flips, minuscule version of a train station timetable — only one train, one destination, and we’re all going.
I’ve never much felt this season as a beginning. Maybe it’s the midwinter sharpening to a point each year, getting to me, feeling more like something to survive than a reason to start over.
In this last draining of days, I sleep. I wake often, which isn’t strange for me, but what is strange is how deep the slumber is in between. Every time I ready for sleep I wonder how far I will tumble, whether I will wake in a reality years and miles and all kinds of distance away. Wishful, in part. My penchant for fairytale, in another. Not so much Wonderland as over the garden wall — things that feel just off-kilter, hard to put a finger on.
But really, it’s simple. I am tired. I bet you are too.
A few days ago, I drove to the ocean with my family. I’ve grown up and lived less than a drive to the ocean my whole life. Whenever I think about moving, anyplace landlocked isn’t on the list for long. There is something about the ocean that brings me back to myself. Roar of waves, tang of salt, heave of ribcage. To walk off the edge of a continent is no small thing: it’s the way the sand gives, as if the land were turning imagined.
I hadn’t seen the coast since my birthday half a year ago, at the peak of summer, sun-slaked and bluest of blues. It’s easy to love a world drenched in light, when the warmth seeps over you like honey. It’s something else to trail black boots through unsteady sand, freezing winds snatching air from throat.
But there was light, that’s the thing. It came citrus-sharp from the west, over the dunes. Meeting the blue and cream churn of the water, the endless blushing east, it melted. I felt strange, walking south along the shore: contradiction split down the middle, or maybe it was the chaos of disparate parts together. Sometimes they feel the same, you know. The sun raised a last signal over the grasses, the moon climbed over the endless crest, and I walked between them, struck by the bothness of it. Warmth even in winter. Light sinking, light rising.
On a particularly hard day this week, I asked folks online if they might share a part of their year with me: something good to savor, or something heavy to slough off. (Note the or.) Some sample bright spots: getting engaged, going to therapy, becoming closer with friends, letting go of toxic people. Some heavy weights: heartbreak, anxiety, the expectations of others, this year’s particular sense of paralysis.
I am always moved when anyone chooses to be vulnerable with me. But what equally struck me was how many people freely gave both — something good, something weary. Like one could not exist without the other. If I’m honest, I was expecting a tidal wave of grievances, souls anxious to be unburdened. But instead came both, over and over.
Something sinking, something rising.
For a while, I didn’t know how to write this last letter of the year to you. I wanted to say, “Listen, I have no advice. I have no metaphor this time. Maybe I’ve been scraped raw, too; maybe this is what it is, just digits of a date changing.” But it’s never just what it is, is it?
It isn’t lost on me that I started this project this year with the duality of sun and moon, and I seem to be ending with the same. If this year has shown me anything, it is that nothing I consider sacred in its stability really is. Even when life seems to be at a standstill, there is always movement under the surface. Sunset, moonrise — there is always something coming up and something fading, rising and falling like the breath.
I crave permanence, but I think really what I’ve been thinking of as at least somewhat permanent — an apartment, a job, the place I live, the people I love — are more like tides coming up the shore. I hold onto them as long as I can, but I never really know how long they’ll stay; I just hope they will. And most of the time, all I can do is build my life around them: less the living olive tree that Odysseus built his home around, more Jenga tower that can still hold with pieces removed.
I know, the metaphors, they’re piling up. This is my cue. No advice, only a wish for you: I hope you can bring the bothness in. I hope you sleep when you’re tired, and sleep to dream. I hope you can walk in the mingling of sunlight and moonlight and be not burdened, but buoyed. I hope you breathe, I hope the tides are kind to you, and that when they aren’t, you are able to ride them so you can wash up in one piece.
I love you. You made it this far.
Parting notes for the year—
how i got through 2020 — a playlist of much of the music that kept me afloat, from new discoveries to old standbys. you can listen in order for chronological enjoyment, or on shuffle for a taste of chaos.
The lovely Topaz Winters has released their 2020 Love List, a gorgeous amalgam of arts recommendations. Dig into this if you’re a January hibernator like I am.
The Wildest Animal News from 2020 (NYT) — if you’re tired of human news, here’s a roundup of what happened in the animal kingdom this year.