There’s been an odd circularity to this year; an ouroboros of inner work that opened and is now closing the year on themes of loving others more deeply by tending more gently to oneself.
Lully, lulla,
thou little tiny child,
by by, lully lullay.
That hymn made me weep on the First of January and today, on the Thirty-First of December, the symmetry was not lost on me when I was asked to read these lines from a once-familiar lectern: “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.””
A change to be made; a magic not to be underestimated – the tape loops back upon itself, from one Sunday to another.
Today is #NYE2023 and I’m wondering how I should go about looking back on the past twelve months while lying on a bed in a city that demands I look back even further — 65 months and 30 days back, to be exact, when I stepped off the plane and called a new land my “home.” What could I possibly say about all that time?
If I may play the part of foreign correspondent, making sweeping statements after a week or two in the orient, I feel a shift in Beirut’s energy post-clustercrises. I remember this city buzzing with aggression and anxiety; now everything feels sleepier, more half-hearted and depressed.
When I stop to take my silly little photos, my body tenses in anticipation of fighting off reprimand; that’s what my nervous system remembers from my younger days documenting these streets: suspicion everywhere, everything a threat. But today, nothing comes. No one cares. The only people who take notice are the street beggars clued into my foreignness with this camera in hand.
It could be the time of year. Maybe it’s always like this in the liminal week between Christmas and New Year’s — I don’t remember. Whatever the reason, it feels to me like people don’t even have it in themselves to road rage anymore. And that, in the final analysis, feels less like resilience and more like resignation.