goodbye 2024 - you strange year, you

the rituals of burning it down and rising again

In the early autumn of sixth grade, I bought a spiral bound notebook with a photo of horses on the front. There was a folder pocket inside the cover and the pages were college rule, which I perceived as an adult thing. Wide rule paper was for children. College rule was appropriate for the serious writer. (Sixth grade me.)

I had a lot of plans for this notebook - what I was going to write in it (lists of movies I’d seen) and how (perfect penmanship.) I remember holding this notebook, looking at its blank pages, and thinking to myself, I should wait until January 1st.

As the year was winding down, I was in the energy of shedding my old skin and looking toward rebirth. I didn’t want to mark up my new notebook with the old energy.

This is how I am. I love the rituals of endings and beginnings. I love clean pages and fresh starts. I’m a burn it all down then rise from the ashes sort of person. So, when I first heard about the practice of choosing a guiding word for the year, I was all over it. New Year! New Word! New Energy! New Life!

I don’t know how many years I’ve been doing it, but it’s been quite a few. After I meticulously curate my list of goals and wishes, and pull a tarot and oracle card for each month of the year, I choose a word that represents the energy I want to embody.

Throughout the year, I sometimes remember my word and sometimes forget. Then, around October, things start to rearrange and I feel my word working. I can see how the things going on in my life relate to the word, the energy I called in by choosing it.

I look over my intentions for the year, and while I’ve never achieved everything I wished for, I can usually put a little star next to enough of them to feel good about the year just lived.

But not this year.

I chose a bold word for 2024, but with only four days left in the year, I can only place a couple of stars next to my intentions. Most of what I wished for, dreamed about, planned for this year didn’t come to pass.

This year was highly strange, almost as it happened in suspended animation. Much of the time, I felt like I was in a hole underground, sometimes struggling to get out and sometimes, just curled up listening to the muffled music the dirt makes when it is doing its dirt thing with absolutely no concern for human desires.

My word for the year was SUCCESS. A different vibe than the words I’d chosen in the past like EASE and LOVE and BEAUTY. I chose SUCCESS and thought all sorts of exciting gold star thoughts like - I’m going to finish my fiction manuscript and find an agent! I’m going to lose twenty pounds and feel amazing! I’m going to start making money! I’m going to complete all of those half-done tasks that I’ve carried from year to year to year! I’m finally gonna get this ol’ life of mine turned around! I’m gonna use my perfect penmanship on this college rule paper!

So, it’s not without irony that I failed so exquisitely in 2024, FAILURE being the exact opposite of what I’d hoped to experience.

Even as recently as November, I was still thinking, I have time to do these things. But, I didn’t. It’s the end of December now and I didn’t do them. I am closer, though. I did make progress - significant progress - on my most important goals. I feel better than I did at the start of the year, physically and otherwise; I understand myself better; I have a much more clear understanding of why I’m here and what I’m doing. I wrote a lot of words.

As we move into this new whatever it is we’re moving into as a collective, I’ve been thinking about how I can serve, what it is I have to offer. What’s mine and what isn’t. What comes naturally to me and what doesn’t. What have I been hiding? Where have I been pretending? Where can I be of service while also flowing in the creative energy signature that is me?

I can’t save the world. I can’t even save have the produce that’s in my refrigerator right now. But what I can do is be the most true and focused version of myself possible. I can be loving and compassionate and helpful right here, where I am. I can make the art that wants me to make it. I can write the stories that want me to write them.

I can walk, speak, and take up space as myself. I can take care of those people and things and situations that I can touch with my own hands. I can keep my energy clean so that everyone who comes in contact with me feels a little whoosh. I can protect my boundaries, so that no one’s non-whooshy energy can reach me.

At the end of this terribly odd year, filled with sudden stops, roadblocks, and dread, I’m going to wear sequins anyway and kiss my friends and shimmy out of my old skin. I’m going to choose a word and pull cards and journal and burn my wishes, sending the smoke to the universe.

I’m going to keep on writing. I’m going to allow my creative voice to split me open and lead me down the dark and winding corridors of truth-telling.

I’m going to keep on trying to make things happen, and keep on crying when they don’t happen. I’m going to keep on rearranging and surrendering and collapsing and getting up off the ground.

I’m going to keep on inviting my spirit guides over for a cup of coffee.

I didn’t paint much in 2024, if at all, but lately I’ve been dreaming about a painting I’d like to see, so I think I’ll paint it. It might take me all year to do it and that’s just fine.

The other day, I was looking through old photographs to try to find one that I was certain I’d taken of Bobby Mackey’s Music World when Mandy and I were on a road trip. (I’d actually only taken the photo with my mind.) While I was thumbing through my digital archives, I came across a photograph I’d taken on a December morning some years ago. It was my favorite Christmas cup and saucer, filled with coffee, sitting on my desk, next to my salt lamp. I can’t explain why, but I love that picture. There’s something about it that reminds me of what I value, and what I feel like when my nervous system is at peace and my creative flow is flowing.

So, much like my sixth grade self who decided to save the notebook for January 1st, I decided to launch a little photo project in the new year. I’ll post a photograph and a few words every day - definitely here on Substack notes - possibly other places, depending on what the social media gods have in store. I’ll stop, once a day, and notice where I am and where my breath is. I’ll notice what’s beautiful, what’s true. I’ll write the words of the moment, snap the picture. I’ll remember my guiding word and all of the wishes dancing behind it. And I’ll remember what I love about life, because there is so much, always so much to love.