I didn’t mean to rant as I did with my last post. Lousy TV programming aside, last night was probably the best New Year’s celebration I’ve had in decades.
My voice carries better than most so I took care to mind my pitch and tone. This was no jokey, drunken reading. Robert Burns’ lyrics about honoring the good times past are sacred to me.
When I was done, I paused for a beat. Then I shouted “Happy New Year!”
About a dozen voices responded in kind. I had no idea I’d had an audience out there in the freezing night.
People began setting off their fireworks. For twenty minutes there was much hollering and pop-pop-pop throughout my neighborhood. I wish it could have gone on longer.
For those first few minutes of quiet after the fireworks I stood in the darkness. I took in the smell of cordite, the sight of the naked aspen branches black against the red-gray city-lit clouds. I spent a minute going through my memories of New Year’s Eves past, took one last mental snapshot of this year’s edition. Then I went back inside.
I stayed up an hour later than I’d originally planned, slept many hours later than originally planned. I drank too much, of course, but I have a whole month to get over it. I’ve already got a lot of my resolutions in progress. If I can keep my fingers to the keys and my eyes on the prize 2013 will be the year I get some books on the market and some bills paid down. I might even lose some weight while I’m at it.
Here’s hoping all is well with you and yours out there in Internetland. Now that the partying is done, let the real celebrations begin!
I was feeling good by the time midnight rolled around. Instead of hollering “Happy New Year” right away, though, I stood on my back patio and sang “Auld Lang Syne.”
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll take a cup of kindness yet
For days of auld lang syne!
My voice carries better than most so I took care to mind my pitch and tone. This was no jokey, drunken reading. Robert Burns’ lyrics about honoring the good times past are sacred to me.
When I was done, I paused for a beat. Then I shouted “Happy New Year!”
About a dozen voices responded in kind. I had no idea I’d had an audience out there in the freezing night.
People began setting off their fireworks. For twenty minutes there was much hollering and pop-pop-pop throughout my neighborhood. I wish it could have gone on longer.
For those first few minutes of quiet after the fireworks I stood in the darkness. I took in the smell of cordite, the sight of the naked aspen branches black against the red-gray city-lit clouds. I spent a minute going through my memories of New Year’s Eves past, took one last mental snapshot of this year’s edition. Then I went back inside.
I stayed up an hour later than I’d originally planned, slept many hours later than originally planned. I drank too much, of course, but I have a whole month to get over it. I’ve already got a lot of my resolutions in progress. If I can keep my fingers to the keys and my eyes on the prize 2013 will be the year I get some books on the market and some bills paid down. I might even lose some weight while I’m at it.
Here’s hoping all is well with you and yours out there in Internetland. Now that the partying is done, let the real celebrations begin!
One thing that I will definitely do more of this year is get back into the wilderness. 2012 was not a good year for me for that kind of thing, despite two weeks in the San Juan Mountains wilderness. Too much writing, which I will actually crank back a couple of notches in 2013. The natural world is fading away and there's too much of it that I want to see before it's wrecked.
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