new years

I'd been back, okay I'd say "a minute", but really it was more like a minute and a half, when the buzzer went. It was a delivery, package from Germany, thanks mate. Fifteen minutes later the buzzer goes again, friends "popping in". I'm back, yeah. Was there a radio announcement or something?

And so it is 2004. Or rather, to use its proper title, Two Thousand and Four. I could feel it in the streets and houses as I strolled back home; new year; the bare bricks still singing that anthem.. "This will be a good year. Yes.". Maybe everyone said it at once or something, left an impression. Sure, There's a lot of deprivation and desperation round here, but There's no shortage of hope.

In Scotland, we take new year seriously. We wrote the song, remember. it's a literal "out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new" event, the whole ritual of transition conveniently facilitated by the consumption of huge quantities of alcohol, which we are also pretty good at producing. it's the bright zenith of our ritual drinking calendar; if you don't pass out, something went wrong.

This year I was fortunate enough to be invited away for the spell, somewhere out of the ordinary. There's no other time of year I'd get to say "sure, why not?", so I went. This paragraph is for the folks asking "where the hell is cor these last two weeks?" Back to the alcohol..

We have a special name for the day before new year too, "Hogmany". This is because it can take a few hours to get really pissed, and you need to be ready for "the bells", which of course is midnight, witching hour. Unlike snakeroot, you get to remember all the stuff that happened previous to the ritual, but now -the next year- one is afforded a wholly different light, a chance to see things differently, to take anything at all and permanently file it under "past".

I filed a few things; yearly tech contracts (too tying, sorry guys, I got this romantic notion see, me swinging through the window with my bag of tools, fix and go.. ask, I will say no), surfing for porn (it's started to loop now, geez, and like, when do I ever get to use it anyway! and anyway, that picture just doesn't exist), and procrastination (true, I do a great impression of a get-up-and-go, get-it-done, get-the-hell-on-with-it kinda guy, but in truth I succeed in that only by putting off the stuff that no one sees, clever huh.) Methinks I should have this kind of clear-out more often. Hmmm.

Importantly, the ritual of New Year also allows one to powerfully begin new things; new ways and methods, new ventures; to take unformed stuff and definitely file it under "future. starting now". I still had a couple from last year in this file, so I began by burning those and forgetting they ever existed. Then I paused.

This filing action, it's good, for some things. Perfect, in fact. Especially filing at the back, the long slam shut. But for others..

I burned the file too, and moved this project to the fridge magnets, simple truth..

every day is new year

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org