The Longest Year

When 2016 started I began the year staring at the television, sitting alone on my parents couch, as my Dad slept in the back and the dog was with him.  That day we had checked my mother into a nursing home.  At that moment, I remember thinking if this is a sign for the coming year . . .

Yeah.

2016.

Here's your fucking match.  Celebrity deaths aside, it's like this year had it out for the world, with a vengeance and flare.

That being said, there are many reasons that the departure of this year is a blessing, and by and large I really don't have it in me to rehash every horror filled moment of the 2016 realm of Dante's hell . . . 2016 being the layer he never wrote about.  For two weeks I've been trying to figure out what I would write to close this year . . . I've sewed some, made bras and jeans and a couple silk blouses, I've travelled, I've taught, I've collapsed under it all, I've lost myself, I've lost my faith in resilience . . . in the end, perhaps tomorrow will have more luster, shine, and happiness.  Today . . . I'm powering down and attempting to find my own reboot, soft auto reset as we would say to our smartphones.

Amid the horror and heartbreak, life let down, and stagnation of the soul there were some brighter moments . . . as there always are.  For the most part though, life left me gasping and grasping for air, teetering on the edge, and more often than not just collapsing.  

That being said, I really can't summon much for this year.  I met a couple of great people along the way, but mostly I just barely held on.  I had the longest Lupus flare of my life (replete with a trip to the hospital), and while the up side--if there is one--is that I had health insurance but the truth of the matter is that in the end it will be always be me and myself. I'll always be waking up alone and falling asleep alone.  The life of the perpetually alone as we say.

Though, as the drudgery wore on--and on and on--I did carve refuge among the hellfire of daily existence.  They really aren't fixes.  Instead, little vignettes inside extended hours and days depleting the soul and psyche.

The Upper East Side, on a snowy night. 

Central Park, fourteen hours into an even longer day.  

Look up from that escalator.  Sometimes a postcard arises.  

While waiting on the bus, to take me to another borough, shivering under a parka the sun shines.  The sun does shine in Queens, even if it falls under the burdens of the day.  

Over in Brooklyn a tree grows. 

The sun sets in The Bronx. 

A dark, poetic, ink-filled sky greets me in Queens.  

Manhattan, the Upper East Side.  There's a bodega owner who remembered me from five summers before . . . after I had been coming off a day of museum watching and vitamin D slurping.  Apparently my purchase of a water then, and now, left a marker on him as he rings hundreds of transactions a day. 

Flushing, Queens.  A passport via the MTA.  

Standing on an overpass, I watch the sun and the cars pass in The Bronx as my toes sank deeply into the lining of my Uggs and my parka shielded me from the arctic blasts.   

Give a New Yorker a post-it note, and we will turn it into a message worth remembering. 

Union Square.  

Vignettes aside, a summer month in Oregon probably did more for my soul than a crate of good bourbon ever could and a weekend in my original hometown reminded me of my Left Coast roots as if the previous month hadn't already, my press showcased me, and a favorite piece came to light.  

Beyond that though . . . things I never told you: in 2016 I was passed over for man not based on merit (as my background, references, talent, and work far outweigh his).  Instead, in 2016 . . . he has a penis and I don't.  That, that . . . sums up the year.  

The #pussyhatproject.  And people have to wonder why women are afraid? 

Next year . . . next year . . .