Hello friends,
I know many of you are celebrating Christmas today, so I’ll keep this week’s letter short. I don’t have much to say, anyway. That always seems to be the case at the end of the year. December is a communal liminal space. We’re all sort of waiting for the new year, for things to begin again. I get a similar feeling during the Jewish hagim (the big holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot). We take inventory of the past year and prepare ourselves to enter the next. I think that’s why this feeling is so universal. We all turn the page at some point, even if that point comes at different times on the calendar.
For me, today has been like any other Saturday. I lounged around, watered my plants, and am now enjoying a cigar on the porch. This day holds no meaning for me. And yet, that general feeling of waiting remains.
Just now, a blue jay landed in my bird feeder. He rested his wings, sipped some water, and then flew off again. This day is no different for him either. I wonder if he feels that liminality. Does he sense the passage of time as we do, or is this time just another turn of the wheel? Regardless, we all continue on.
Next week I’ll have a longer piece for you, a return to a prose poem I wrote at the end of 2019. We were all so full of hope then. Do you remember?
Until then, I wish those of you celebrating a merry Christmas,
Yardena
Weekend Potpourri
Enjoy these shelter dogs choosing their own Christmas gifts
Trevor Zegras is a national treasure