January's always bitter
But Lord this one beats all
You're told that the New Year begins on January 1st, because the old year ends on December 31st. But January is not a beginning, it is a transition. Janus is the god of gates, of doorways - that place between where you've been and where you're going. The threshold over which new brides are carried, the doorframe upon which a mezuzah should be placed. The interstitial space. This is January.
Janus sees the past and the future. Looking forward while looking back, but never looking within. What's gone before is reviewed, what's yet to come is planned, but what is... that gets lost, swallowed, forgotten. Where the other months are enjoyed, January is barely endured.
A space of unknowability, the place of transformation that we pretend happens immediately. Though it feels like stagnation it is the necessary delay, for nothing happens instantaneously. It is the pause, pregnant with possibilities. We think that because we know where we've been and we believe to know where we're going, we know where we are. As though it is the past and the future which locate the present.
I know where I've been. I know the trajectory I intend to go. But January is bringing about a hell of a metamorphosis, one I will only understand in hindsight. It has pried my frozen hands from the delusion of control, but the sensation hasn't returned to my fingertips. And while I realize these pieces of me have not been wrenched out - amidst this rearranging there is an emptiness and an ache. But I must keep a warm heart, staying supple and malleable. If I freeze, I'll shatter in the wind.
Tonight outside my window
There's a lonesome, mournful sound,
And I can't help but thinkin'
'Bout the ones the wolves pull down
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2 opinions:
Did you write the verse at the end? It's lovely, sad, but lovely.
Hang in there.
BTW It's nice of you to read my blog. I was pretty sure I was writing to myself.
The beginning and the end bits in italics are from a Garth Brooks song titled "Wolves" - not me. I tend to stick to prose most of the time.
Also nice of you to read my blog. Once upon a time I posted regularly and had regular readers, but now it's mostly a ghost own with occasional blurbs. :)
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