running into a new year
with reflections from loved ones
I usually mark the springtime as the beginning of the year — when there’s all that palpable shifting and thawing out. the melting and budding and warming sunshine that brings the creatures back out makes it feel like everything is vibrating. I love it, pisces into aries season, my half-birthday passes in march and i can really start to feel out how the first part of my year has shaped and will support the second half. in december, i experienced the winter solstice as a great marking point for the end of the year and the coming of a new one.
2022 felt like the first time in a while that i could really mark a calendar year in time. I think I actually felt every month, I have something to point to — some activity, task or life event — in each month. I started this letter in January, the same month my cat and my grandmother died. that grief carried me through february when i started taking ceramics classes again and met my dear sweet lucy for the first time — having only heard about her from someone i briefly dated back in august ‘21. in march i was frantically making little zines and reading Shakespeare with riley over facetime. by april i was not only dancing again but also had cooking gigs lined up for the rest of the spring. i had my best trip to new york in april. i attended my first contact jam in may. my first silent retreat in june. i traveled all of july. got covid in august and started dating a capricorn. turned 26 in September, left my teaching job in october, ended things with the capricorn. saw aftersun in november & celebrated geoff’s birthday with him in person. december flew on by, silk press & all, i ritualized the solstice and here we are.
it feels miraculous to remember so much from the year and to carry it with the knowledge that i was accompanied by an undercurrent of grief the whole time. I mourned friendships and family members and felt a big grief of self. many times in 2022 i thought “i am growing up.” this is what it means to feel a year and myself in it. to start to learn to respect my own boundaries and desires and deep needs. to mourn what i could no longer lean on for comfort because the familiarity of my unhealthy patterns could kill me. to move my body intuitively, to feel nourished in that movement, and to relate to other bodies in space. all these things and more were shown to me last year.
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for this letter i asked three of my favorite people to reflect on the poem “i am running into a new year” by lucille clifton. a poem that was circulating on the internet heavily during the last week or so of the year. i first read this poem when i was 20, during my sophomore year of college and i remember loving it so much, and wanting to be the ages in the poem and curious about what i’d be letting go of and what it would mean to become 26, and 36 (even thirtysix!).
the longest thread running through my connection and love for these women is that they are the smartest, funniest, most gentle, loving, and curious people i’ve had the honor of experiencing. arnell calderon is my closest confidant, my pace car, and my connection to other dimensions. nora frias has known me since i was 11 or 12, she is deeply insightful and someone i’ve always felt unshakeable support from. i met molly brown-hill at the end of this past summer and have been in awe of her since — she is…otherworldly in her intelligence, a fierce educator, and makes me giggle so much.
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i am running into a new year by lucille clifton
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixten and
and twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
molly: This poem invited me to be easy on myself. When I read it, I wanted to dance. I don’t want to be afraid of time, I want to be excited about the new iterations of myself I get to be as time goes on. Smile at the Molly who dug her heels in just to dig, and then wave her goodbye. I want to celebrate myself more often. Wake up with a smile instead of a groan, clap for myself when I make a good meal, do mundane tasks with enthusiasm, hum when I’m doing the littlest things. Keep my useful idiosyncrasies and turn over the rest as fertilizer to prepare me for new growth.
arnell: when you first asked me to reflect on this poem I was a little spooked because it has been on my mind – but that is one of the many beautiful things about our relationship. This poem is currently sitting in my heart as a gesture of self-compassion. I am forever in gratitude for the ways Ms. Lucille teaches me courageous ways of beholding the past. To no surprise, her Cancerian nature blooms in her poems (you and I never fail to mention it when we send each other her poems) – Cancerian in both the quietness and the need for movement, newness, and chance.
I desire to enter a new year with agility and I also need the stillness to look back, with compassion and forgiveness of who I am becoming and have yet to be. I have been thinking about how self-compassion is a skill, one that demands great humility and willingness, to tell the truth. When I’m being challenged to tell the truth to myself, tenderness is a task and a sport that makes me feel clumsy – judgment is my muscle. The new year opens up the possibility of finding my own rhythm in tenderness, one that is grounded in integrity and in the fact that nothing is ever that serious. It is hard to find the rhythm that works for you, yet Ms. Lucille reminds me that to be buoyed by all your past selves, springs the possibility of a new self to emerge, hopefully, one that is more forgiving, loving, and funny.
nora: I find myself more and more straddling this place between nostalgia and anticipation.
Nostalgic for the times that were, the new things to experience, the firsts, the ease of youth.
And the anticipation for what I still need to do, still need to see, still need to contribute.
I also realize that being present in the moment is more of what I need otherwise I miss it. I miss the micro-moments that carry joy and love and contentment.
As I age I strive less for accomplishment and more for being content and still. My word for 2023 is “settled.” Not because I want to be complacent but because I want to feel settled in my physical space, body mind and heart.
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my heart goes out to you, friend. i wish you a steady and restful start of the new year. i wish your past selves love and i welcome your present self with attentive care. thank you for being here.
m