a lighter spirit

Happy new year!

I will admit, I fell down on the blogging towards the end of last year. (Well — maybe not towards.) And I would post the reasons (and they are legion), but this is the very first post of 2013, and that should ... I don't know, mean something. So here is what I am going to do: I am going to post a little — maybe not every day, but at least more frequently than I usually do — about all the things I should have posted in December, but didn't, and then in a week or two we will be all caught up and we'll be able to start clean. Fresh. Like one should.

I will say something new-year-ish, though: it's amazing what a difference the calendar makes. I mean, I know it's a human construct, it's all artificial, but still. When I thought of December, my thoughts are dark — not in mood, but in the absence of light, literally dark. I think of twinkling lights, I think of softly falling snow, I think of shopping, outside, at dusk — and all of it is night. And now, it's light. Everything is clean, like a peppermint after coffee. Yesterday was my first day back at work after the holiday, and as I left work it was dusk — the sun had already set but it wasn't completely dark yet. And that little bit of sun made me so happy.

And yes, I know; that's a function of the solstice; we're past it now and galloping towards the light. But it's more than that. There isn't that much more light now than there was on December 31, and yet the latter, to me, is dark. We keep vigil while the old year dies. The new year doesn't begin until it's day, actually day, and you're tramping through the cold air to visit friends, and everything actually does, oddly, feel new. And light. January is as dark as November, maybe even more so, but it never feels as gray, or as depressing. Somehow all that light bleeds through.

Christmas post tomorrow. There's a cute baby involved — and also Harry Potter.