Ambivalence ain’t the best associate with whom to re-enter blogging. Surely there are most congenial ones to be had — confidence, excitement, rarin’ to go ambition. There it is anyhow.
Ambivalence is what I’ve got, the scars of blogging past and disappointments inflicted by readership. Ain’t gonna dredge those channels. Too early in a new year for revisiting the truth that people suck. I can defer until Jan. 3. Perhaps the 4th if I really push it.
The act of writing is paramount, even if no one’s listening or interested or caring. The gift and curse of a genuine writer. To be a writer: an honor, nee state of beingness, of such magnitude that I still can’t wrap my thoughts around it for reasons too personal to put into a blog, even if no one’s reading.
There it is.
Anyhow, the new year is upon us. If history’s any indicator, I’m due to watch a lot of TV in 2013.
How can I present such a prognostication this early in the game? For years dating back to I don’t know when, whatever I’m doing on New Year’s Eve reveals the tone-theme-mood of the coming year.
And since I was at the local watering hole — surprisingly (if not disappointingly) uncrowded for a New Year’s Eve and a half hour before the clock struck midnight — with no one really to talk to and staring up at the TV broadcasting the Times Square ball drop that in reality had taken place two hours prior — well, that can mean only that I’m destined to watch lottsa TV this year.
Ever the outsider observing. The gift and curse of a writer, I suppose.
I digress.
Contrary to a good portion of the U.S. population, I did not greet this first day of 2013 with a hangover. Even in my youth, lost before it ever begun, I didn’t view NY Eve as reason or opportunity to get as wasted as humanly possible while retaining mortality.
No, my persuasions incline toward the Japanese style of celebration, which lean toward serenity and cleanliness. Yes, despite being back on Western soil, I continue the tradition of o-soji — the Great Clean — whereupon house, home, property, workspace and automobiles are cleared of clutter and dirt. Windows too to anyone who happened by this blog!
Traditionally debts are paid off too. Not so much in modern times. The goal is to enter the new year with a clean slate.
Well, I’m not entirely there yet but I come damn close.
Then there’s the visits to the shrines, usually at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and the prayers. A severe shortage of those – shrines and temples, I mean — here in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, to be sure. Nonetheless, the shrine attitude’s within. Upon that I make due.
In a really really really clean house! … save for the clutter of my roommate’s space and basement. Gotta uphold a practice and policy of hand’s off in that situation.
I pose to myself the question I ask of others upon this cusp of a new year: What do you hope for, wish to see in 2013?
My answer: abundance and flow … in all aspects, from finances to work to creativity — writing that book especially! — to, well, the rest I leave to the imagination.
Sure, on the surface those sound like wishes and hopes by a good third (or more) of the world. But I’m an individualist, not a generalist, and I don’t speak for a third of the world’s population.
Abundance and flow in all areas of life: words of significance, meaning and power of me, from me and pertaining to me personally.
And there it is: blog entry numero uno in 2013.
Cautious as I go.
To anyone reading and not reading this post, I wish for you a year true to you.
Because it ain’t New Year’s without a kadomatsu (or some expression of Japanese decoration):
DivineDimes 