What holidays?
I could use the words of someone notable to set a tone for what I’m about to describe. I could parlay a quote from Pema Chodron or Mary Oliver or Ross Gay into a cozy preamble for the lessons of the holidays this year. Or I could level with you and admit: what just happened was incredibly hard.
The holidays. They were grueling. Because of Covid. Because Omicron is incredibly infectious. Because our knowledge of Covid going into the holidays was based on earlier, scarier variants. Because a lot of us are vaccinated now and though not invincible, we feel more comfortable doing the important things—like seeing close friends and family—than we did last year at the holidays. Because everyone’s tolerance for risk is a little different. Because apparently, I had Covid while hosting friends at Christmas.
Today, Monday, two days after the new year began, I am merely reporting. For nearly two weeks, my body has harbored intermitting stomach- and heartache. I spent my time immersed in risk assessment, Covid testing, having conversations about reasonable versus unreasonable expectations during this time, talking a few loved ones off their emotional ledges, dragging a few other loved ones onto my emotional ledge, all mixed with seeing and hosting a few meaningful people in ritualistic ways that resembled festive gathering.
What I feel today is nothing like the usual, perhaps better to say historical, resonance of satisfied— having spent various parts of a week with loved ones—and unconstrained — being free from most external, professional pressures. Christmas-to-New Year’s is a liminal week that I look forward to each year because it’s a time that permits unbridled dreaming, setting intentions, summarizing gratitude for the year passed and committing to a new 12-month embrace of the wonder and difficulty of life as it is happens.
Nope. Just crash landing into the third day of 2022. Semi-exhausted.
I can’t go back to last week and recover any golden moments of asking myself what things I’d like to learn this coming year, or what comfort zones I challenge myself to move beyond. I can’t regain that time when the phone and computer are uncommonly quiet so that I may capture extended reflections about the year on the page. No easy time now to look back through my daybook to remind myself what movies I watched in the past 365 days, or which books I read, and which people I gathered with.
It’s back to work. Dentist appointments. Deadlines. Scheduling.
I can only offer what little currently occupies my larder of inspiration: a small story, and two aspirational lists. Better than nothing.
The New York Times published a collection of “tiny love stories” on New Year’s Eve united by the theme of “Fresh Starts.” Many were good. This was my favorite because it’s so tender and funny, and serves to remind that we lost incandescent people not so long ago in a parallel time, that of the AIDS epidemic.
‘That Big Gorgeous Life’
After the breakup, we spent every Thanksgiving, birthday and Christmas together. Close enough to touch, legs inches apart. We were still dying of AIDS in the ’90s, but I always thought no, not Michael. When he died I wondered who would love Black gay me like that ever again. It’s taken me 20 years to see what he saw in me. That big gorgeous life was too beautiful to be in ruins. Damn it, Michael. And yet I can still hear you saying, “Get off the cross, Mary. Somebody else needs the wood.” Just as close as two legs almost touching. — Wesley Rowell (originally published on Oct. 17, 2018)
The two lists, consisting of a genre juxtaposition from one of my favorite sites for considering what to read, Five Books, are influencing my next book haul.
One is the essay collections shortlist for PEN’s Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award in 2021, described by PEN essay awards judge, Adam Gopnik. All of these look good, but I’ll likely start with Nature Matrix.
Screenshot, Five Books
The other, a lovably quirky selection of the best self help books of 2021, assembled by the (lovably quirky) self help writer, Emma Gammon.
Screenshot, Five Books
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals looks delightful. It’s on my list. I don’t expect that it will get me back on track with the new year, and how I think end of year weeks are supposed to go. But it may help me quickly move on from the sting of the holidays this year—perhaps by the end of the my 2,973nd week—this Friday.
