New Day

I am a firm believer in the arbitrariness of New Year’s celebrations but I will not say No to a public holiday.

There are so many clichés floating in the air around the Holiday Season that it’s difficult not to end up reflecting on sentimentality, cynicism or hipster indifference. For my part I’m always there for the food and or beverages but I have never been emotionally invested in it.

The way Christmas is celebrated annoys the dickens out of me but I play nice especially because family is involved. Everyone makes such big deal about traditions that I have never connected to. So I help with the Christmas tree and I help entertain comments from visitors to my family’s house (while I’m there) because … Christmas.

New Year’s on the other hand I’ve had a weird relationship with mainly because in my adulthood it has always been wrapped up with my boyfriend now husband. Our first New Year’s he rode a bicycle to meet me at my home at midnight and fell down in the process. Midnight was filled with kissing cuts and promising never to part. That was ten years ago and every Old Year’s Night thereafter we together.

At my family’s home music is played loudly and all the neighbours stand in each other yards drinking, liming, watching the fireworks, and celebrating surviving to the next year. Basically the same at my in laws. When on our own we spend it in bed, with cognac and snacks. I have fabulous friends who travel to see fireworks or to be somewhere new or spend the night at a party with fabulous people in fancy clothes. Maybe one year I will like people enough to do that.

I like New Year’s for that reason. I have never felt the social pressure of Christmas to celebrate in one way or another. I have options that include small groups and less noise. Also my affinity to New Year’s isn’t rooted in the changing of the date and the feelings related to its commemoration.  I actually celebrate me New Year’s on my Birthday.

That’s my new year.

I’ve learnt and profoundly experienced, every day is a new year. Resolutions can begin on the whatever of May or November or June.

So this New Year’s I’m celebrating tomorrow and my resolution is to celebrate tomorrow daily with personal fireworks and the enthusiasm of a sexy size 6 (with a 12 booty) 24 year old at an open bar on December 31.  

Happy New Day

Finding time to write (type)

I don’t like to type. I wish I were a good typist but I love to write.

It seems that in this century writing is typing are synonymous. To me there is something cold and distant about typing. I seriously considered getting one of those speech to text software setups for my computer because like most introverts I can have an amazing conversation with myself and the minute I begin trying to type it I freeze up, forget or second guess myself.

A page with lines, the movement of my hand bouncing up and down as I form my thoughts, even the scribbling of mistakes and doodling in margins is far more comforting that the blank white rectangle of a computer programme and the ribbon of font and text options above it.

Partially my preference is nostalgic. Penmanship was mandatory subject for me when I was 5 – 9 years. I had excellent penmanship and I had one particular teacher at age 7 year that inspired me to write beautifully. Post-colonial countries love to teach their children cursive and my family did not fail to prioritize this style of writing. My grandfather maintained a set of fountain pens that he regularly wrote with until his death at 81. A calligrapher in his spare time he often volunteered to do certificates for schools and training programmes. He would pay me 25 cents for every full name I could write well.

Somewhere between making money off of my grandfather and my first computer my mother bought an electronic typewriter. I was fascinated. There was digital display that allowed you to type each line and review it before printing. With one touch of the enter key it would print the enter line in one continuous motion. It was no fountain pen but the movement of the platen was mesmerizing. For a dyslexic, being able to see what I typed before it was committed to the paper gave me sense of the control that other digital displays to date have never been able to.

Typing is now a part of my daily life and career aspirations. I write before I type, especially for work important to me. I hand wrote my master’s thesis.

I have personal stationery, but I don’t use it any more.  Much of what I type now is someone else’s product. If it’s one thing I must acknowledge, 2016 was very much the year of someone else’s words. Lots of typing but very little personal writing. Very little thoughtfully written reflections, ideas and stories that, very little of what’s important to me.

I want to write more, type more and find permanent places to all my words, because what’s sense of constantly using words you don’t take time to make yours visible too.