Emblematic

 Emblematic.

Growth around. Despite? Within?

The wine bottle within got left there, in this patch of my back yard, on New Year's Eve 2019. Really, by the time we were drinking that bottle, it was New Year's Day 2020. There has been so much this year has brought that I never could have imagined that night/ morning.

Coincidentally, last night, Kris and I drank the same kind of wine with two of the same friends with which we drank the bottle in the photo, though this time it was in their backyard, not ours. Things that have changed: our ability to hug one another and go into one another's houses. Things that have not changed: our friendship. What we are discussing may be 'different,' but when is it ever 'the same'? In this light, things are indeed changing all the time. Lack of change can mean stasis.

Much of the context in which the weeds have grown around this bottle is not the kind of context I would have wished for this year. I suppose I'm using the word 'wish' here because that is indeed what I mean: 'wishing' perhaps pertaining to that you know you do not have direct control over, and 'planning' for that you do. Recognizing there is a wide spectrum between these poles opens the possibilities of how they overlap as well.

I've kept thinking back to that night in the last couple weeks: New Year's Eve 2019/ New Year's Day 2020. Some of it is humorous, as I've been patting myself on the back for conning my closest of the close into a bonfire in the backyard the last two December 31sts: really, I've just been preparing them for the fact that if they wanna hang out that night this year, it'll have to be in the backyard, right?! Some of it is more serious. For as long as I can remember, I have been one to appreciate how the annualness of things like New Year's, my birthday and the State Fair/ back to school time can serve as set-points at which to reflect and prepare. Kris tends to refute the idea that New Year's in particular is some sort of 'reset,' as this mindset can often be more dangerous for folks than helpful. I appreciate this perspective, but still lean toward finding benefit in looking upon these dates and events as useful points through the year at which to ponder what's been going well and what could use a boost - at least where junctures of direct impact are concerned.

I find myself reflecting on this bottle in the weeds not at an exact set-point (though State Fair and back to school, however reimagined, are on their way). Instead, it's an emblematic object to which I keep finding my way back. It's image gives me a strange sense of hope: there was a New Year's last year, and if I am fortunate enough to keep on living - an idea that always rings true and that I am working to not take for granted - there will be another one. And one after that . . .