Auld Lang Syne, Saudade, or Goodbye, Old Year
Isabella received a watch for Christmas, pink and perfect, and it puts me in mind of my Holly Hobbie watch, which I received as a young girl. It marked time for me then just as this pink watch does for Isabella now. How as a child I became aware of time—so differently than my present self. How the wait to Christmas was seemingly endless, and the passage of New Year distinct, and all time in between magical, mysterious, melding—disappearing. Playing blissfully. Unaware of day or hour. These many years later—some 30-odd years since that watch—I find the passage of time not quite the same, though it is the same measurement. It feels faster, more relentless, unforgiving, sometimes merciless. But it’s not without its mercies. The simplicity of childhood may not be there, on adult radar, daily—both in our personal lives and in the public sphere, in our own time and in time immemorial. The travesties of this past year seem the mercilessness of ages rolled into one, suggest ...