New Year

January 2016. In search of a better conclusion.

On Thursday night, as every year, the humans met in Times Square

Bringing their alcohol blankets and their Instagram cameras

Dragging their acquaintances and their maybe midnight kisses

Planning the stories they would tell, the filters they would use, the lives they would portray

Gathering in the mist of a year already half forgotten

Television networks from Atlanta to Augusta warned of the rain as announcers from Augusta to Atlanta thanked their hidden stars that they had only the rain to worry about.

They stared straight at the camera, smiles unchanging.

Can you even remember a New Year's Eve this warm, Charlie?

Absolutely not, Donna. What a day.

Barely blinking.

I, too, traveled for the holiday

Spent the six hour trip to Raleigh writing to those I hoped would not forget me

Five letters in six hours

I hope you're doing well

My trip to Cape Town in June was wonderful

I live in the city now, I took the corporate job

My soul isn't gone yet, I think

Ha ha

I've been volunteering with the Girl Scouts

Teaching myself a couple languages on the side

Rock climbing when I can't find mountains

(and I never can)

I'm meeting people, don't worry

Just this week someone added me on LinkedIn

Have a delightful New Year

Sincerely yours

Pragmatically yours?

Intentionally yours.

The Editorials and the Lifestyle pages told of others' resolutions

Humans who promised to run half a marathon, start a garden, tip higher, smile brighter

I, too, resolved

To get more involved in the community, to read, to travel

All of us planning not merely to do those things, but to become the sorts of people who would do them

We went along like that all fall and into the holidays

All of us

Feigning shock at the weather

Speaking to friends old and new, smiles unchanging

Telling of fireworks and family

Barely blinking

Silently thankful for climate change

And how the climate changed

On Friday morning, as every year, the ball fell

The temperature fell

The snow did not fall for it was too cold for snow, so the sun shone right through to the frozen puddles, as the remnants of last year's mist crystallized on oaks and concrete

By Monday, the humans returned to work in two extra layers

Those who left last year in light blazers and thin shoes arrived in defeat

Their faces too cold to hide the shock of transition

A chill too severe even for their best peacoats

Directors and middle managers and interns hurried together

The wind reddening all of their noses

Cutting their breath indiscriminately

From the window of the bus or of the office, I could only sit and admire

The honesty in the all-too-clear air of a new year

Something charming in the desperation of people whose typically-unchanging ensembles were interrupted by thick scarves and silly knit hats

People who had worked far too hard and far too long for it all to come to this

Whose names were too well recognized to merit such mistreatment by so pedestrian a force

I cannot speak for the others, for the success of their resolutions

But shocked into January's honesty, I have to second guess my own

Wonder whether I wanted to get involved or to make friends

To read or to sound well read

To travel or to seem adventurous

Had we all just resolved to seem to become the sorts of people who would accomplish our grand resolutions?

Maybe the clarity of a new year was meant

To make us human after all.