‘Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.’ – from In ‘Memoriam’ Alfred Lord Tennyson
It’s that season again: new year, new hope, fresh starts, fresh goals. How’s it going?
I’ve heard people saying that we should enter this year quietly and cautiously so that it doesn’t see us coming and therefore deny it any opportunity to spring alarming surprises on us. I’m not altogether convinced that this will help us much.
So, I wonder, have you leapt into 2022 with the enthusiasm of a puppy and the focused intention of an apex predator, totally focused and stalking your goals, preparing for total success? Or – and this seems more likely – are you still emerging form the post-Christmas haze in which you lost track of the days of the week as well as your escalating calorie intake? Have you awarded yourself metaphorical stars for nurturing those well-meaning resolutions or are you mourning your commendable good intentions as they lie already sadly trampled in the mud of January, week one?
I’m not a fan of those January aspirations, not because recalibration of your personal ‘dance’ and the desire to upgrade areas of your emotional, physical and spiritual life are without value, but because I find that the fuzzy nature of the Christmas break doesn’t lend itself to clear thinking and strategic planning. In our household, the husband has a stinking cold exacerbated by exhaustion, one offspring tested positive for Covid and I feel like a soggy dishcloth since my get-up-and-go seems to have got up and left without so much as a by your leave. My body is still reeling from the unaccustomed richness of a festive diet, the lack of routine and the absence of any exercise more strenuous than staggering to the fridge to prepare another meal for the gathered ensemble.
It’s always special to have the family together, and more so with the increasingly complex logistics of life and responsibilities beyond our immediate blood ties. I love it when the offspring arrive and hate it when they go again, even though I am well aware that we are in the grown-and-flown stage of life. I’m also self-aware enough to know that I simultaneously, and not very secretly, welcome a return to the familiar dance steps of every day life which bring at least a modicum of routine, in which I can return to juggling words on paper and moulding thoughts into something more substantial.
That’s not to say I don’t anticipate learning some new moves this year, if not an entirely original dance, complicated or otherwise. They will come, I have no doubt, but they seldom fit neatly into to my preferred time table.
Will we, for instance, return to South Africa this year? I think we shall, and I’m already looking forward to that. Will we discover a new ‘nest’, or even ‘nests’, for a base in the UK and maybe SA too? I hope so. Will this be the year when we rediscover the plethora of items packed away in storage containers, or have I just slipped into the delusional world of wishful thinking? I’m not sure.
These are things over which I have very little control currently, and that’s OK. This part of the ‘dance’ has been very challenging for someone who treasures the familiarity of a three-dimensional, physical home, although on the upside I have learned to do life with considerably fewer accoutrements (a good thing) and to treasure relationships more highly (an even better thing).
When the day does finally come to unpack the boxes from their metal resting place it will either feel like Christmas all over again, or I will experience a tsunami of baffled dismay as to why on earth such a vast array of items were deemed worthy of storing in the first place. (Emotional fatigue, is the simple answer to this; perhaps you are familiar with it yourself. Eleven years ago, I simply ran out of the mental resource to differentiate between rubbish, charity shop items and essentials-to-keep, so reluctantly resigned myself to a slightly dazed automatic pilot mode of wrap-and-pack until, Abracadabra, nothing was left.)
There are other things, for which I can plan, regardless of travel restrictions and/or pandemic-related government edicts. I have a contract for a collection of children’s stories which is to be published in March. This is actually very exciting and something I have dreamt of, probably since I was seven or eight years old. Ideally, I would like to go into some primary schools with this, encourage some creative writing work while nurturing the imaginations of my Key Stage 2 target readers. I have two other manuscripts at approximately the half way stage, at least one of which could be published before the year is out. Another two projects are in the planning and brain-storming stages, plus various magazine articles etc. Meanwhile, the Steadfast family is growing and there are already four planned gatherings around the theme of Hope to share with them over the next eleven weeks.
On the occasions when I manage to lift my eyes from this screen, I will see again how that topic is lived out by so many of my friends around the world.
A new year always brings a whisper of hope for what is to come and, despite universal disappointment in the on-going Covid part of life, once again friends will get married, have babies and grand-babies, embark on adventures, overcome challenges, enjoy job satisfaction and promotions, and know relational peace as they discover the liberating balm of both giving and receiving forgiveness, loving and being loved unconditionally.
I am reminded that it only takes the smallest pinprick of light to dispel complete darkness. We can bring that light to our world when we reflect The Light of the Bethlehem baby. The Victorian poet laureate’s work quoted above goes on with this declaration:
Ring in the valiant man* and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.
That seems to me to be a great and universal rallying cry for men and women everywhere as we take our hesitant steps into the new dance of 2022. Let’s not hug the metaphorical wall, but step up, step out and step into all that has been laid before us. Let’s dance.
* or woman, I’m sure.
dancingthroughchaos 