Symbolic Forest

“Are you going to go and watch the sunrise on New Years Day?” said more than one person over the past week or two. Initially, I agreed, it seemed like a rather nice idea. The sunrise is too late at the moment for me to really go and see it on a work day such as the Winter Solstice, so New Years Day seemed like a suitably symbolic alternative. However, I had second thoughts. A long-distance running race was scheduled for that morning. Not only would it bring crowds, but it also would block off my usual access to the beach from around sunrise until well after lunch. I thought better of trying, so had a lie in instead. On the 2^nd I had other plans, which I’ll tell you about later in the week; so finally, today, I headed down to the beach for my first sunrise this year.

It was, still, unusually busy. But by that I mean the car park was half-full, and there were several other groups of people spread out across the beach, not that I was having to elbow my way through the crowds. One family had brought chairs to sit and watch the sunrise. A man with a long, long camera lens grumbled at his dog for running off.

The tide was highish but falling, so I strolled along the tideline. The sea was calm, no swell at all, but a bitterly chill wind swept across the sands and raised ripples in the water. I watched the first signs of fire lighting the edges of the clouds

This is an east-facing coast, so normally, as you would expect, the sun rises over the sea every day. At this time of year, though, the sunrise moves so far around to the south that it rises over the land instead. And naturally, on a day with a clear blue sky, the one and only patch of clouds on the horizon was exactly in line with the sunrise. I watched as, slowly, the sun edged around the clouds, crows wheeling in the air around me.

In a few months time, when the sunrise is early enough that I can get home after it, shower and breakfast before work, hopefully I’ll start coming here every day again, or at least doing something else similar to give me fresh outdoor air each morning. For now, though, this was enough. The sunrise in winter, starting the year afresh. I shivered in the bitter wind, and turned for home.

Just one dawn, but it means a whole new start.

Keyword noise: new year, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshirem, beach, dawn, sunrise, coast.

It’s Hogmanay, or nos Calan,^* or New Year’s Eve if you’re English.

In some previous years I’ve done a big summary round-up of exciting things and powerful memories from the past year. In at least one, I even did a week or so of posts counting down my top five memories of the year. 2021? Nope, I’m not doing that. Not because nothing has happened, not at all, but almost because too much has happened. I moved house twice. I met one of my best friends face-to-face for the first time. I changed jobs. I went for walks on the beach a lot. Most important of all, though, I gained confidence. I gained enough confidence in myself to look at who I really am, what has held me back in the past, and start to sort out some of those things.

So this post, then, is not about looking back, because I’ve spent a lot of time doing that over the past year and I know that I don’t have a time machine. I know I can’t go back to 2003, or 2006, or any other arbitrary point in my life. This post is about looking forward, because in 2022 there are going to be even more changes in my life. Changes that I’m going to take the lead on, be in control of, and that will put me in a position where I can live a happier life.

At some point in the next year I will ramble on about this a lot more, I’m sure, and explain more about where I’ve come from and where I’m going to. For now, to you the reader, this is all unsubstantial mist, I know. It won’t always be. For now, happy new year, blwydden newydd dda, and here’s to a better 2022. I know mine will be better, and I hope yours is too.

* It’s only just occurred to me that the Welsh word “calan”, meaning the first of the month or year, is a direct remnant of the old Roman word kalendae, from which the English word “calendar” is derived.

Keyword noise: End Of The Year, Hogmanay, Memories Of The Year, New Years Eve, new year, Sarah from Ipswich.

So, what are my resolutions for this year?

Well, really, they’re all project-based. This is going to be the year of getting things done – not Getting Things Done^TM, but the general, non-trademarked sort of getting things done.

This year, I will: for a start, redesign this website. It’s not been changed since it was first written, and it could do with being freshened up a little. Then there’s the other website project that K and I have been working on, that’s almost ready to go live, but not quite just yet – that one needs finishing off. And then, there’s everything else we’ve got planned. Everything else that we’ve thought about doing, and said: we really should do that one day. We really should do that. Everything from publishing our own zine, to getting some photos saleable, to writing a movie and a novel, to cataloguing all our CDs and DVDs. I’m going to have a stab at all of them.

Keyword noise: completion, new year, optimism, plans, resolutions.

Yesterday’s post, as you might have guessed, contained my New Year’s Resolutions.

pause for regular readers to think: hmmm, I didn’t read that. Where is it?

The Plain People Of The Internet: Come on there, get on with it!

That was a joke, of sorts. There wasn’t a post yesterday, because there weren’t any New Year’s Resolutions. There is lots about my life that I’d like to fix, but … well, why should I set any arbitrary dates? Either I manage to do things, or I don’t. There’s little point waiting for a new page in the calendar before trying to do something, is there.

This year, I’m going to do more. I’m going to be more creative, more productive, and more optimistic. But I’m not doing that because it’s a new year. I’ve already started the process. In the past three months, I’ve done more than I did in the rest of last year; and that’s going to continue.

Keyword noise: new year, resolutions.

I gave you my vaguest possible list of things to change this year, on Monday. I’ve thought of something to add, though, something slightly more practical. I’m going to try to respond to people quicker.

I’m not the only person who is bad at responding to emails and so on. I once had a boss who had a long list of emails in his inbox, ones he should definitely have answered. Every few months he would delete the ones that were more than a year old, on the grounds that by then the original query would be so out of date to make replying pointless. I don’t want to get that bad. I’m none too bad at one-line responses to one-line questions, but anything that needs a substantial response I’m terrible at. And as soon as it drops off the bottom of my inbox, it’s out of my mind.

So, from now on, I’m going to make an effort. I’m going to make use of the “show starred mail” view in my inbox, for one thing. I’m going to reply to things. I’m going to answer questions, write to people, put some effort in to keeping in touch. A friend recently said: “if you want to stop talking to me, tell me so, don’t just stop writing.” And I don’t want people to think I’ve lost interest in them just because I haven’t answered their emails. From now on, I’m going to be responsive.

Keyword noise: answering, email, new year, resolutions, responsive.

…because in a year’s time, so many more moments will have passed. And I don’t want to have wasted any of them.

This year, I am going to:

• update this site every day (well, you never know)
• meet new people
• make friends with them
• try not to lose any more friends from the ones I already have
• do something about my career.

The first and fifth are practical, but the other three are the important ones.

Keyword noise: blogging, career, new year, plans, resolutions, socialising.

Time to do some looking back. Some of these memories will be good, some bad, and none are in any particular order.

We walked onto the dark beach together, me leading, me holding your hand. It was around midnight, nobody was about, and the moonlight was bright on your face.

I led you onto the beach, and looked around to make sure we were alone. I held you tight with your arms behind your back, and felt you start to go fuzzy around the edges. I chained your wrists together behind you, looked into your eyes, and watched your moonlit smile.

Keyword noise: 2006, beach, memories, Memories Of The Year, moonlight, new year, relationships.

A very nice man said to me today: “It’s been a good year, I think.” And it has for me, too. It’s been a very good year, and a very bad year; and the strange thing is, the good and bad parts have been together at all times. It’s been an extreme year, I think, a year of travelling and new experiences, of meeting very nice people, very nasty people. Most people aren’t specifically nice, or specifically nasty, but can be either if they want to be. A few, though, are at one extreme or the other; and luckily I know more of the former.

In the news today: the shops are supposed to be busy. They’re not, though. I’ve just got home from a trip to Leeds, which is usually a horrible place to visit on a Saturday; and compared to most weekends, it was positively quiet. York was the same today, I’m told, and the roads everywhere in the region weren’t exactly busy for a Saturday. The predictions of huge floods of shoppers are more down to the wishful thinking of the shops, I think.

Someone else said to me recently: “do you know what an emo is?” And I found it a rather hard question to answer. So if you have any suggestions, tell me.

Keyword noise: Christmas shopping, emo, memories, new year, self-reflection, shopping.

The fog is thick all over the country at the moment, but it’s only now it is affecting The South that it makes it into the news. Up here in The Forest we’ve had thick fog all week, but it hasn’t troubled the press at all. I’ve been driving the Town route home rather than the normal Country route,^* because a fog-bump at 30mph is a lot safer, to my mind, than one at 70.

I’ve recently been rereading The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper, for the nth time. And with the weather gripping the country, I couldn’t help thinking about that book. It’s set at this time of year, between Yuletide and Epiphany, and as the great force of evil, the Dark, rises and attacks the land, it brings on a great freeze and blizzards, stopping anyone from leaving their home. A great freeze is rather more dramatic than all-consuming freezing fog, but the fog has the same effect, muffling us all and slowing us to a standstill.

But now it’s the 21st of December, the time the festive season really starts. The solstice is tomorrow, I believe, and the year will have turned over. The solstice is the proper new year – it’s not an arbitrary date, it’s a measurable point in the turning sky. From tonight, everything will get lighter and brighter and on its way into spring. This is the time of year for flame and warmth and remembering that sunlight will come back into our lives.

* which is longer but a lot quicker

Keyword noise: books, children's books, Epiphany, fantasy, fog, literature, new year, seasons, solstice, Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising, weather, winter solstice, Yuletide.

Well, this year has started with sneezing fits and blocked sinuses. I have an awful cold, the sort that makes me feel as if my brain has been packed in grey cotton-wool.

Someone at work once told me she didn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. “If you want to do something,” she said, “you should just go out and do it, and never mind what the date is.” Regardless of that, though, this is what I’m going to do this year:

• Get this site running on WordPress 2^*
• Update the site every day, if it’s practicable
• Lose weight^**
• Spend more time with friends, especially ones I haven’t seen for years
• Try not to worry so much about the impression other people have of me Make an effort to meet more people – if it results in meaningful relationships, either friend or lover, then so much the better^***
• Take up writing again

* It’s important to have at least one resolution that has a definite chance of happening. So, I made sure to put one in that I should have knocked off by the end of the month.

** As I don’t know how much I weigh – and have no intention of finding out – this one might be tricky. I’ve definitely started putting a bit of flab on in the past few months, though.

*** I’m still not giving you the address of my online personal ad, though.

Keyword noise: 2006, new year, resolutions.