The Circle of Time

Why don't we turn the clock to zero honey?
I’ll sell the stock we’ll spend all the money
We're starting up a brand new day...

--Brand New Day
Sting

My last entry of Holidailies--and 2007.

New Year's is an arbitrary point in time--a creation of a human calendar. If there was a starting point for the new year, it would probably be at Winter Solstice. Some cultures mark a new beginning at Spring Equinox and one or two at the Autumnal one. But the year is really a circle, a cycle of seasons with no end or beginning, just the unending change that marks all of life.

But humans like to organize and categorize, so we have endings and beginnings. While I was napping this afternoon, the new year began its creep across the spinning world--midnight at Greenwich Observatory is three in the afternoon here. If I understand the International Date Line correctly, the Far East has been in 2008 for almost a day already. Here at the last edge of North America, 2007 lingers while the rest of the world celebrates.

I am not sorry to see 2007 go--it was a hard year on me. While I have hope for the new year, I know it will probably be a mixed bag of losses and gains. I have seen enough years go by that I don't have too many romantic notions. It is enough for me to be here to see the new one in, with loved ones around me, warm and safe and well-fed. That is plenty to be grateful for in this old world.

To those of you who stopped by, thank you. I want to wish you and yours all the best in the coming year. May 2008 be good to all of us.

For tonight is New Year's Eve
Uncork your spirits and welcome it in--
Who knows what it's got up its sleeve?
Can't wait for it all to begin

--Laughing Into 1939
Al Stewart


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