“I Am Running into a New Year” by Lucille Clifton
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even forty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
Friends, today is my birthday. It’s an occasion I like to think of as a rebirth, a chance to ponder changes for my new year ahead.
Truth be told, I play at these “fresh starts” often (which probably says something not so flattering about my follow-through). The rentree with its bustle after the slow summer vacation is usually that kind of time. My birthday, too. New Year and then Chinese New Year about a month or so later (I never quite manage to have made good on my January 1 resolutions.)
But this post is to share that a major change has indeed come to pass, and it may come as a shock.
Friends, I left Paris. At least for a little while.
I gave notice on my apartment, gave most of my stuff away. I returned to the town I grew up in, where I haven’t lived in nearly 20 years.
A path in Chapel Hill, NC. (Photo by TranceMist on Flickr Creative Commons).
Whoa, whoa, WHAT? you may be saying.
I know. It’s a lot.
When last I wrote you, a move wasn’t even in the mix. But things changed quickly and I hopped on the ride.
paris (im)perfect 