renewal.

I am not really a holiday person per se, I have been in the past and my participation in the rituals of the popular holidays ebb and flow from year to year. Ah, but one thing that never changes is my love of New Years Day. It’s my favorite day by far, not the eve, but the actual day. The first of January is always like a gift, this huge blessing every single year. I am still always amazed that it manages to show up every year and it does, without fail. I think its my favorite because I am drawn to cyclical things, to beginnings and endings. I never have done well with things that go on and on without any real markers of finality or regeneration. I need these small pauses to be able to appreciate, reflect, recollect or just take a breathe before moving on. I also think I need to be able to let go, throw it all up in the air, and press on. Thank goodness our years have this built into them so we, I, can celebrate their being, mourn their ending and look right at them with reverence and anticipation all at the same time.

I have all these little rituals I do on New Years Day to remind me that I get another chance (365 to be exact) and more importantly, that its ok to take them. I start a new sketchbook, a new art project, make lists, consult my cards, make piles of new books to read for inspiration, walk the city with POB to make sense of it all, the tiny rituals go on an on. But this year I have decided to add one more to the list. Write more, and more specifically, write more here.

So, Happy New Year’s Day however you spend it and with whatever little rituals make you happy enough and optimistic enough to keep taking your chances this 2011. Ready, set, go.