for a new season

Here we are, seven days into the new decade/new year and I’m arriving kind of rumpled and sleepy-eyed to the after-party.

I didn’t make any real resolutions, or choose a word for this year. I appreciate the gifts of the Gregorian calendar and how it helps us organize a complex society, but I’m kind of over it, personally, if you know what I mean, these arbitrary blocks of time. I’m thinking more in terms of seasons and what this current one (rain and mud, seed catalogs, rumors of war) is saying to me right now.

There’s a note on the bulletin board over my desk which says, “Humanize everything .” I put it there when I was in the middle of a tricky part in one of my novels and have now forgotten exactly why I did. But it caught my eye again the other day and stuck with me.

Whatever it meant all those months ago, now it has me thinking about the people who are hidden from me on any given day. Elderly people alone in their houses, disabled adults in their foster homes, prisoners in their cells, textile workers at their machines, people unloading boxes in warehouses, cleaning my hotel room when I’m out having lunch, washing acres of sheets and towels in fluorescent-lit basements, digging minerals out of the ground for my cellphone/computer, growing bananas on corporate-owned plantations, dismembering chickens in the horror of slaughterhouses, sleeping in doorways, picking up garbage, cutting down trees, worrying about bombs, watching coastlines erode or homes burn, and so many more I don’t even know to consider.

I want to think about people right now, and how to live together like neighbors. I want to give to some new places, listen to some new stories, humanize everything.

There’s a design principle that runs along the lines of “Ask WHY five times.” I’m thinking I should be asking “WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO?” every day.

Get under the surface, is what I’m saying.

Then there’s the very serious work of promoting beauty in a time of ugliness. And hope in a time of cynicism. And tenderness in a time of talons.

All that to say, I took a walk in the rain the other day and found, like always, that it wasn’t raining as much on the trail as it seemed to be from inside my house.

To help myself, I started taking pictures again. Just a snapshot every day. ( I’m posting them here , very quietly, if you want to see them. )

It would seem that laughter is slightly more necessary right now. Also naps with cats.

I did make one resolution - I think you will understand this - and it is to only consider criticism and complaint from people who are truly invested in me personally.

Which leads to consideration of the inverse of this as well, shrinking my justifiable complaints and criticisms significantly.

Basically what I’m saying is, by any calendar, this season of rain and mud, seed catalogs, and rumors of war seems to be asking for brave seeing and reckless hope and that’s enough to keep me busy for quite a long time.

I’d love to hear your new words/thoughts/hopes for the new year (or this season, if you prefer.) Feel free to share!

peace keep you,

tonia