Stuck

It's three weeks into the new year, and I'm still stuck in the old. I have leftover work from last year, and I have yet to make space for things that should be filed but are now unceremoniously piled in one corner. My planner is groaning with hastily scribbled "plans."

Maybe, there really should be a break between the old and the new. Time enough to sift through the accumulations of the past year, keep what must be kept and discard the rest. Time to take stock, to take a breather before plunging straight into the new.

As it is, the frenzied days of December have quickly blurred into equally frenzied January. I am hopelessly stuck, reeling from the blows of unresolved resolutions and giddy with the prospect of making new ones.

And it is close to February already!

Reclaiming Sorsogon

We're back to the familiar: the cars prowling the streets are the same familiar cars. The faces are the same familiar faces. It is back to just us, and Sorsogon is ours once more.

On new year's eve, I made the mistake of going downtown for the usual last-minute rush. It was bedlam, and the really thick crowd made me wish I had body odor in a bottle. Or skunk spray. How wonderful to be some kind of Moses and see and sea of bodies part, I thought as I pushed my way past equally exasperated last-minuters.

The streets are uncrowded now, save for portions claimed by the more headstrong sidewalk vendors. Rush-hour traffic is back to a five-minute pileup. The post new year quiet takes some getting used to, and it sure gets a little lonely sometimes.

But then, knowing how people always seem to seek the road back home, I know that this is just a breather. The unfamiliar cars and the unfamiliar/once-familiar faces will be back in April. Or in June. Or in November.

To reclaim a piece of home.

Happy New Year!

While waiting for the muse of blogging to settle in for the new year, here's something from the great Maya Angelou:

The bells are a-clamor
chimes have been loosed
there is a banquet of Hosannas in the air.

We have endured endless peaks of pain and valleys of loneliness;
We have lost beloved's we could not live without; yet we have lived.

We have encountered unforgivable cruelty; yet we have forgiven yet we have been forgiven.

We have survived, flourished, and thrived with passion, compassion, humor and style. We have been fortunate and worthy.

Now we stand, heavy laden, before a great gate which leads to the rest of all time. It swings ajar, and we know at this critical moment that not all we carry need enter when we enter.

We can evict hate and scorn from our souls; we can open clenched fists, and let bigotry, malice and enmity fall back down the slope to yesterday.

We can lay down our burden of violence and step lightly over the lintel into a vernal and newly-minted tomorrow.

We, who never saw a new century; we, who never saw a new one thousand years, can join the hallelujah, the hymns, the paeans, the voices all over the world.

We can shout or whisper, scream or mumble:
Happy New Millennium!
Happy New Century!!
Happy New Year!!!