"Oooohhhh, Just What I Wanted--A Brand-Spanking New Year All My Own..."

photo, Jos Lambregs, 1997
greeting card purchased in Los Angeles, California

Don't you love the idea of sitting down and writing out a few checks, a journal entry, or greeting cards today just so you can scrawl "1/1/11" with abandon all over the place? Now that is my idea of ephemeral fun!

I woke up the first time in this new year at 3:50am and, fortunately, fell back to sleep until 5:30am, at which time I toyed with getting up and at 'em. I lingered au lit too long, my Frencher Half rose to make coffee and eggs, and I'll be damned if I didn't plunge headlong into a dream of waking in another bed, in another place, only to find a big fat book of family history left on a desk for me with old torn-off addresses from the corners of envelopes stuffed between the covers. Someone wanted the book back but I was reluctant to relinquish it... It was almost 8am before I "stumbled outta my rack."

with all due credit to Jeanette Chiarini for her post of this quote in fb on 1/1/11:

“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.” — Ellen Goodman

A new start...
photo, Andrea Sperling, 1993
greeting card purchased in Costa Mesa, California

What would you do if you woke up one morning with a brand-spanking-new, bright and shiny year ready to unfold itself, day-by-day, before you? What if it was this year? Would it depend upon what you had not completed last year? What you had in-progress and rolling over into the new year? Or, would it depend rather upon what you had not started last year and yearned to begin? There are so many variants to what was and such untapped potential in what will be... The permutations are mind-boggling.

As a person who moved, at the age of 57, from the country of her birth and upbringing to a foreign country in 2010, I can say that the outgoing year, for me, was replete with tasks and functions to which I was required to attend in order to dismantle one life, fully fleshed out, and construct, to date, the mere skeleton of another life in which to continue living, breathing, acting upon the world, and having it act upon me. The move itself was a success, the movees have survived to tell the tale, and the adaptation and acculturation process for both of them is still ongoing.

Untitled, photo, Tina Modotti, 1925
postcard purchased in Los Angeles, California

I cannot say that I have been, nor behaved, as I expected during these past/first 9 months of gestating a transformation of myself in this new setting. Although, I can say with great certainty that I brought myself, first and foremost, along on the trip with me and that out-of-context I have recognized many of my deeply ingrained habits and survival strategies of old, and that they have served me well in this alien environment as a blueprint for recreating a viable life out of nothing, here abroad.

Given the potential for emotional destabilization inherent in, simultaneously, moving and retiring--though "retirement" at my age, and in my situation, is a complete misnomer--those habits and strategies have been invaluable and, in their own way, a tremendous comfort to me since I left the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Untitled, photo, Lynette Molnar, 1984

greeting card purchased in San Francisco, California

I return once more to W.H. Murray's apropos quote about beginning anything:

"But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!"

––W.H. Murray, The Himalayan Expedition

Fortunately for me, I brought along more than enough incomplete projects and ruptured relationships from 57 years at home to give me plenty work to do in my spare time--between meals and data-entry duties--finishing and/or patching them up from here in la belle France. The truth of the matter is, I don't believe that there has ever been a better time in a life, in this historical moment, to be adrift on the planet.

The plethora of technologies for "keeping in touch" with one's fellow wo/man has almost made a nonstarter out of "homesickness." I guarantee you that I have been in contact with more people in the USA since the beginning of December, whom I have known, loved, and/or appreciated, at one phase in my life or another, in the past 9 months than in the 4 years prior to our move from Southern California––all thanks to blahging, the magicJack, SKYPE, the NeufBox wifi & integrated telephone service, and fb. I would probably even go so far as to say that a balance has shifted and that one now has to make a greater effort to stay out of touch with others than in. Who woulda thunk?

Paris Bathroom, photo, Jim Enfield, 1985

greeting card purchased in San Francisco, California

I'll be looking forward to hearing all about how your brand-spanking new bright and shiny year unfolds day-by-day, and I'll be easy to find...