Much like blogging, it often seems that by the time I get around to making New Year´s Resolutions, the optimal time has passed. Rather than lazily letting life pass me by, forever remaining the same, flawed person you knew (and loved) last year, I have decided to initiate February Resolutions. And, while I can´t tell you what those resolutions are (if you say them out loud then you can actually be held accountable for them, you know), I´ll just insinuate what a shame it is that it took me until now to get back on the blogging train.
The New Year. There are a lot of moments in the year when I like to be pensive and think about where I was last year, what has changed, the highs, the lows. In fact, I will pretty contentedly take any and all opportunities to do so... where was I last February 9th... But, for some odd reason, New Years really doesn´t do that for me. No matter how great or awful the year has been, by the time December 31 comes around, I am just ready to move on with it already. Unfortunately I learned the hard way four years ago that if I am not actually awake at midnight to physically experience the change of the year, it takes me about 5 times as long to actually acknowledge that a new year has begun, and then I am off kilter for most of the year. Yeah, I know, lame and pathetic.
Much like the ill-fated New Years of 2006-2007 (it was really one of the more absurd nights of my life), 2010-2011 was also celebrated in Italy, this time in a small village with new friends, gathered around a fireplace. Without the familiar televised image of Time Square - an illuminated, electrified ball dropping, thousands of people counting down, wearing ridiculous hats and sounding noise-makers, finding a face in the crowd to kiss, the holiday was nearly unrecognizable. A minute or two after midnight, everyone began shouting Tanti Agori (which they had been shouting for days regarding nearly every occasion - Christmas, a birthday, anything worth wishing congratulations or well wishes) and kissing everyone in the room, everyone... twice. And that was it, 2011. It was real, the future, and I was in it.
A few days later it was time to leave Italy, this time by train. For 17 hours. It wasn´t supposed to be 17 hours. But this is a new year, and none of us knows the rules yet. In any case, it was a beautful 17 hours. If they could figure out how to build the tracks, I would happily take a train to the moon. I could write a whole blog about how much I love and appreciate public transportation, but for now I will just tell you that despite delays, missing a train, changing trains 6 times, and getting locked in the wrong train with no electricity (and being the only person with enough survival instinct to bang endlessly on the train door until someone noticed us), I still love trains. Love ´em. It helped that I met the most delightful Italian Social Anthrologist, with whom I shared the journey, cups of coffee, breath-taking views of the snow-covered Alps, and observations about the world.
At the end of the day, I was back in the Berlin Train Station, homeward bound, and then back in the Centrum Judaicum, doing my thing. And this is 2011. And this is where I will spend it. And that´s alright by me.
The New Year. There are a lot of moments in the year when I like to be pensive and think about where I was last year, what has changed, the highs, the lows. In fact, I will pretty contentedly take any and all opportunities to do so... where was I last February 9th... But, for some odd reason, New Years really doesn´t do that for me. No matter how great or awful the year has been, by the time December 31 comes around, I am just ready to move on with it already. Unfortunately I learned the hard way four years ago that if I am not actually awake at midnight to physically experience the change of the year, it takes me about 5 times as long to actually acknowledge that a new year has begun, and then I am off kilter for most of the year. Yeah, I know, lame and pathetic.
Much like the ill-fated New Years of 2006-2007 (it was really one of the more absurd nights of my life), 2010-2011 was also celebrated in Italy, this time in a small village with new friends, gathered around a fireplace. Without the familiar televised image of Time Square - an illuminated, electrified ball dropping, thousands of people counting down, wearing ridiculous hats and sounding noise-makers, finding a face in the crowd to kiss, the holiday was nearly unrecognizable. A minute or two after midnight, everyone began shouting Tanti Agori (which they had been shouting for days regarding nearly every occasion - Christmas, a birthday, anything worth wishing congratulations or well wishes) and kissing everyone in the room, everyone... twice. And that was it, 2011. It was real, the future, and I was in it.
A few days later it was time to leave Italy, this time by train. For 17 hours. It wasn´t supposed to be 17 hours. But this is a new year, and none of us knows the rules yet. In any case, it was a beautful 17 hours. If they could figure out how to build the tracks, I would happily take a train to the moon. I could write a whole blog about how much I love and appreciate public transportation, but for now I will just tell you that despite delays, missing a train, changing trains 6 times, and getting locked in the wrong train with no electricity (and being the only person with enough survival instinct to bang endlessly on the train door until someone noticed us), I still love trains. Love ´em. It helped that I met the most delightful Italian Social Anthrologist, with whom I shared the journey, cups of coffee, breath-taking views of the snow-covered Alps, and observations about the world.
At the end of the day, I was back in the Berlin Train Station, homeward bound, and then back in the Centrum Judaicum, doing my thing. And this is 2011. And this is where I will spend it. And that´s alright by me.
No comments:
Post a Comment