BY DR. NURIT ISRAELI
Photo by Dr. Nurit Israeli
“And now we welcome the
new year,
full of things that have never
been.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke
On my desk, a blank 2019
calendar is ready to
replace the filled-withgood
and-bad calendar of 2018. A
new calendar, untouched, waiting
to be filled. With what? The calendar
won’t foretell.
There are no previews before formal
release of a new year. No way
to predict what a 2019 calendar is
going to look like 12 months from
now. No way of knowing what
challenges, opportunities, joys or
heartaches await their turn to be.
As an old Yiddish saying succinctly
reminds us: “Mann tracht un
Gott lacht” (Man plans and God
laughs). Still, even though we
can’t know for sure what is going
to happen next, our best bet is to
optimistically plan and let time
eventually tell…
It is thought the first month of
the year, January, is named after
the roman god Janus, the god of
beginnings and endings. Janus is
depicted as having two faces, looking
in opposite directions: He can
look ahead toward the future and
simultaneously look back at the past.
I often mull over the intricate
ways in which endings and beginnings
are intertwined. Things
don’t really end. Any ending is
a beginning of something, and
every beginning is saturated with
reminders of what ended. We
take the past wherever we go. But
time propels us forward and new
beginnings offer opportunities for
revision: seeing where we missed
the mark, determining where our
lives have diverted from our values,
shredding old ways that have
become burdens, exploring options
to do things differently, taking new
chances. In the words of T.S. Eliot:
“For last year’s words belong
to last year’s language
And next year’s words await
another voice.”
I am continually amazed by how
rapidly time slips by. How did 2018
manage to run its course so rapidly?
It seems like just yesterday we
welcomed a brand new year; yet
before we know, it will be swept
away for good.
GOODBYE 2018:
I am releasing you to the archive
of have-beens. I will try to hold on to
the good which came out of you—the
knowledge gained, the goals reached,
the love shared, the friendships, the
glitters. I will try to come to terms
with the hardships too. With you, I
accomplished yet another rotation
around the sun, added yet another
year to my growing collection of years
filled with living.
I remind myself to never take
any of the goodness for granted. As
Jane Kenyon notes in her beautiful
poem, “Otherwise”:
“I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise…”
Well, I got out of bed today with
a brand new 2019 calendar waiting
to be filled. I have beaten the odds
once again…
WELCOME 2019:
I am geared up for whatever you
have to offer, prepared to do my
best as we take a journey together.
I hope you are going to be a
good year. Not perfect, just good
enough for us, individually and
collectively.
I prefer to wish others and myself
a “good new year” rather than a
“happy new year.” Happiness is
an elusive concept, with no consensual
operational definition. A
good year is not necessarily free of
difficulties, struggles or letdowns.
A good year, for me, is a year, in
which I manage to fully inhabit
my life: live every day, savor the
gift of time. A good year is a year
in which I find strengths to meet
challenges, accept the ebb and flow,
lean toward contentment. A good
year is a year, in which I find ways
to accept, reconcile, even embrace
seeming contradictions—as losses
mingle with hopes, regrets coexist
with gratitude, and disappointments
don’t remove a sense of awe.
A good 2019 will be a year, in which
we find ways to be there for one
another, put the welfare of others
at the center, find comfort in each
other, know and show caring and
compassion.
In a recent meeting with friends,
I suggested setting the tone for the
coming new year by first sharing a
personal experience from the past
year which inspired us in some
way. Mine
was a conversation with my adult
grandchildren which showed me
ways the family chain continues.
The next activity I proposed was
choosing a word or a phrase or a
quote which symbolizes a goal
for 2019. Since I try to work on
accepting the rapid passage of time,
I chose a phrase borrowed from Dr.
Seuss:
“Don’t cry because it is over,
smile because it happened.”
I also intend, as soon as I finish
writing this, to compose a note to
myself with some new year intentions
(I prefer intentions to resolutions—
resolutions assume we are
not “good” enough the way we are.
They set expectations and are associated
with evaluations. Intentions
are more flexible ways of aligning
our lives with our values and priorities).
I plan to put the note in my
desk drawer and review it at the
end of 2019.
As I go through these small rites
of passage, I am profoundly aware
of yet another verse from Jane
Kenyon’s poem, “Otherwise”:
“But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.”
Yes, I know. One day… But right
now, a new year is beginning to
unfold: our next chance at the art
of living. Another precious block
of time filled with possibilities: 12
months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760
hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000
seconds… These will swiftly tick
away. There is no way to slow their
pace, turn them off for a while or
bring them back. We should try
to make every second (ok, most
seconds) count…
At the gate of a still uncharted
2019, I wish all of us courage to
let go of what can no longer be,
strength to embrace life as it is,
wisdom to focus on what matters,
passion to seize new opportunities,
and foresight to make the chunk of
time gifted to us count. Let’s try to
step forward in faith—create our
footprints in the still virgin landscape
of a brand new year. Let’s
choose a direction, carve a path,
welcome new beginnings. May
2019 be a good year!
Welcome, 2019
Carve out your path…
January 2019 ¢ NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER 13