It seems as though we spend much of our time on this earth fighting, avoiding, and wishing to manipulate the natural flow and passage of time. In our early years we want to rush it and in our later years we try to slow it down (or rush it in a different sense). Sometimes we’re the ten-year-old wishing to be a teenager, the teen wanting to be twenty-one, the college student eager to start a career or family. And when we’ve arrived, we seldom pause – instead we look to the next thing until fewer and fewer next things present themselves, and then we begin looking back. We become the adult waiting for the weekend or the vacation, the busy and tired parent wishing we had a little more sleep, or hours in the day, or time with friends and family, etc. etc. Looked at this way, I wonder if we’re ever content.
Last night, and today, my social media was and is flooded with what one would expect…. Reflections on a terrible year and wishes for the next one to be better. 2020 was rough and there’s a collective desire to put it behind us. The town of Belen, N.M. lit an actual dumpster fire as residents tossed in calendars and symbols of 2020 (paper masks and little-used tourism guides). It was a year in which time became slightly unmoored. We lost track of days, we sorely missed seeing other people, many of our usual rituals were waylaid. And as bad as 2020 was, we do what we do as we flip the calendar to January 1: we muster up a little hope, think about how we can be better, we work to bury old ghosts, and find ways to start anew.
New Year’s Eve and Day, and birthdays and anniversaries, all highlight our uncomfortable relationship with time. In ancient Rome, Julius Caesar moved the date of the New Year from March to January 1… January – a new start. Some believe the month is named after the god Janus – a god with two faces: one that looks back and one that looks forward – a god associated with beginnings, gates, transitions, and doorways. For at least 2000 years we’ve been hoping the next year will be better. The scale of that history – billions of people looking back and looking forward in a brief moment marked by the tick of a clock down to the very second – is enormous. This is how time passes, seconds and moments that stretch to hours and days, weeks and years. Time is an equalizer. It is one of the few things that we all share – it belongs to all of us and none of us. It is indifferent. In the end, it’s the only thing we have.
Aside from having my ego bruised a bit and, of course, the challenges of moving and isolation and starting over, I don’t hate 2020 the way a lot of people do. I’m not terribly fond of doing the whole count my blessings type of thing. I’m skeptical of toxic positivity. But the reality, for me, is that I didn’t lose anyone close to me… which is worth appreciating. The reality, for me, is that I learned to let go a little – of inhibitions, of my past, of some of the petty things that just don’t matter. In 2020, I learned to appreciate and love the people who were around me. In 2020, I managed a few adventures to towns like Oxford and Clarksdale and discovered the family, juke joint vibes of a rural ranch in North Mississippi. In 2020, I discovered the peace that can be found on long walks by a mesmerizing river and the beauty of magnolia trees and sunsets over Arkansas – on those walks I discovered a voice, sometimes contemplative, sometimes creative, that had been quieted for many years by the day-to-day busy-ness of life. Perhaps more than any other year, 2020 taught me to slow down, to listen, to see, and to think. I took the bold step of writing poems and submitting them for publication. I tried my hand at painting. I gave my time, and what little expertise I have, to a few nonprofits as a volunteer consultant. I met and marched for justice with people whose lives, and skin, look radically different from mine – with them I chanted I’m not ok, if you’re not ok, I’m not safe, if you’re not safe… In 2020, in the shadow of the balcony where Dr. King was assassinated, I listened to people share what it means to be responsible to and for each other, what it means to be my brother’s keeper. In 2020, I had the small but important epiphany that it doesn’t matter if what another person (in this case my ex-fiancee) felt or said was true or sincere… whether she meant it or not (the I love yous and I hate yous) never changed the way I felt. In 2020, I spent a lot of time thinking about what matters and what it means to live a good life – which has allowed me to live a little more freely, with an open heart and mind, and a heightened sense of presence.
If I’ve learned anything these past few years (and in 2020), it’s been to embrace uncertainty, to embrace multiplicity, to recognize the temporal nature of things. I’ve learned to appreciate the paradox that desire and suffering go hand-in-hand. I’m not trying to be dogmatic and wag my finger at all of the 2020 haters, I’m just saying that for me, it has delivered some pleasant discoveries that I couldn’t have expected. I’m glad I was open to them.
The clock struck midnight. A new day arrived and with it, a new year. I’ve thought about my resolutions. An interesting word, the solution to a problem, a clear and determined path…. I had the list of familiar promises – to be kinder, to read more, to write more, to listen better, to be less petty, to care more about the environment and our world and my neighbors. And in world full of hope pinned on the passage of time, I’m finding that all I really want is the chance to keep trying, to keep redefining, to keep exploring, to keep living – whatever that means in as full a sense of the word as possible.