This Will Be Our Year
photo: Cort Neuhoff
Remembering childhood New Year’s Days, I overhear the cheery adult hubbub surrounding two traditions. I silently (hopefully not sullenly) ignored all talk of resolutions. Who knew what the year would bring? Maybe breakfast cereal will lose out to Hershey’s kisses. Also, and not quietly, I naysaid even a spoonful of black-eyed peas and stewed tomatoes. Can’t I find good luck anywhere else? Perhaps my frisbee will sail over grownup heads.
But now, a new year almost here, and I’m dressed in unwavering resolution. Simmer, you promising black-eyed peas. Yes, absolutely, to savoring daily servings of determination and constancy. Stocking up the soul pantry. Hello, 2023.
No way back to how we were—only the way forward to who we’ll be.
Humanity’s goodness steals this long year’s last thunder. Three global lighthouses shine. First, Future Crunch reports “99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2022.” With every glance I spot a hot pick—today’s winner #49. Big strides in human rights, conservation, global health and development, clean energy transitions. Next beacon. “I hope my words of respect and gratitude resonate in each American heart,” intones Ukrainian leader Zelenskyy, speaking on December 21 to a joint session of the US Congress. “Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in most responsible way.” What a mutually-empowering exchange of flags between Zelenskyy and House Speaker Pelosi at the conclusion of his historic address. Third bright light, All-star Brittney Griner plans on playing ball for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA’s coming season, every dribble a victory. Detained in a Russian penal colony since February and grateful to her fans for their support, Griner continues “to advocate for other Americans to be rescued and returned to their families.”
Four friends, two in public education and two in healthcare, lift spirits. Mired for three years in their jobs’ ever-mounting demands, despair leans in close. How brave they are, despite their solitary treks.
An elementary school principal’s hair flies, no time anymore for her 5am straightening. She’s yanked nonstop by parents, state standards, glaring inequity—by teachers present, teachers and aides absent, social media. Whenever possible, she sits with a student. “What I’ve learned about joy is that it’s everywhere all the time, if I pause long enough to see and feel it.” A seasoned high school history teacher, without answers and with nowhere to turn, hammered by an increasingly heavier load and strain on public schools, wishes for thicker skin and greater reserves. He aches for more time, always more time, both to have and to give. “I still find joy in the art of teaching—the reward of conversation and interaction. Learning the kids’ stories and forming relationships is life-giving.”
A physician witnesses pandemic-induced isolation that he likens to solitary confinement. He offsets the palpable loneliness filling his office every time that he diminishes patient suffering. His rigorous disinfection and screening protocol dulls anxiety’s edge for him and his patients as does his requiring masks and vaccinations. “I long for a resurgence of compassion. And daily doses of justice and truth.” A dialysis nurse bemoans severe patient isolation, relentless uncertainty, continual changes in personal protective equipment. “Like playing roulette, I’m a gambler every day I walk into the hospital. At night I sing as loud as I can. Now, travel seems the greatest gift to me—the gift of being with the person you love.”
photo: Amber Capron
Joy. Time. Compassion. Travel.
2023, be like eggs—few scrambled, most sunny sides up. Look out your windows—sacks of resolve dropping at your front and back doors. May the full-bodied laughter delighting each of you be your youthful own. Bit by bit. Wink back at the face in the mirror. Step by step. Feeling my lifetime crush on prepositions kicking in, I’m stuffing a few of these little powerhouses in your pockets. Into. Until. Around.
Without. Toward. At.
Moment by moment. By.
“Everybody Is Doing It” jazzes poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Reggae, calypso, samba...tango, rumba, flamenco. “Even foxes dance a lot / They invented the Fox Trot.”
Freddie Mercury’s rocket ships—scales at last tip our way. A shooting star and racing car, Mister Fahrenheit and Lady Godiva woohoo “Don’t Stop Me Now.” No stopping Queen’s good time—no stopping ours. “I feel alive / And the world, I’ll turn it inside out.”
Aging well, these musical Zombies, especially at their recent performance of “This Will Be Our Year.” Warmth. No worries. “Now we’re there and we’ve only just begun / This will be our year.”
Fox trotting Freddie. Awakening zombies. Beginning.
Billy Collins travels way back in his “Nostalgia Poem.” Dancing the “Catapult” in 1340…winding a music box in 1901… finally arriving at the morning when “I was even thinking a little about the future, that place / where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine.”
Collins can only guess at the name of this dance. Our secret. It’s “The Haiku Boogaloo.”