It is forbidden to remain in the gangway

Vietato sostare nei passaggi di intercommunicazione

Next to my desk I have a small sign I bought at an antique store in Florence—it says first in Italian, then French, then German, then English—it is forbidden to remain in the gangway. I don’t know why I bought it other than it’s a good reminder—you can’t linger in the liminal space, the Europeans at least feel that way.

This is the most transitory of times—these days between Christmas and New Years. The days between working, not working, and working. Our sense of collective time becomes mushy with obligations, lazy days, weird eating, traveling, and whatever else people do. Last year I spent this week reading non stop—I went through a massive stack of novels, but that’s not been the case this year. I’ve watched movies and written. Been lazy and confused. Time is still very mushy for me.

It’s also the time when we start reflecting back on the year we just lived—what did we learn? what happened that we might want to happen again? what could we leave behind? what didn’t serve us?

I have my own answers for those questions but I will say 2024 was not a normal year for me. Or at least I’ve never had a year like this one. I’ve written about this before but I lost a lot in 2023, was just a domino effect back to back blows and crises. While I didn’t intend for this entire year to serve as recovery, that’s what it’s been.

The truth is when you remain in the gangway, you can see things in both directions. It’s easier to have clarity about where you’ve come from, what you’ve just walked through than if you were still standing in the past. It also means taking stock of what the future will need from you.

Unfortunately, our futures always ask a lot of us and even more unfortunately, much of what ends up being required, are things we couldn't have known to prepare for. This is just how it goes. I think this next year is going to ask so much of each of us—for our fortitude, patience, passion, compassion, empathy and rage. I can’t imagine the future these days. It’s something I only realized this year, it’s a ptsd thing apparently, but it makes imagining the future almost impossible because we can’t imagine a scenario where we see ourselves in it. I see myself always standing in the gangway trying to squint to see what’s ahead of me, and if I’m there with it. If there’s room for me there, if there’s a need for me there, if there’s a want for me there. I realized this year so much of living is just deciding things even when we don’t always have enough information. We have to decide to walk into what’s next, blindly and bravely and each year, if we’re lucky to live it, we will be asked to do this again. I don’t know if each year gets easier, I’m 40 and still uncovering new ways life is challenging, but I’ll say the knowing it’s challenging and how to prepare does get easier. It’s something—we’ve got to take the wins where we can.

I bought myself a visual reminder from Etsy of what I need to say to myself, or rather what I need said to me each day. They’re little small art prints—one says “YOU HAVE WHAT YOU NEED” and it repeats down the page. The other says “A LITTLE BIT EACH DAY.” What else can we know but these two things? Maybe these words are all we have to bring into the next year. A little bit each day, and you have what you need.

On my desk I have a book called Deadlines, A Rhapsody on a Theme of Famous and Infamous Last words. A section I have highlighted says this:

“In this world there is no greater pleasure,” the old translator read with the shock of recognition, “than coming back to life after being torn to pieces.”

***

On the other side of silence

in a sacred grove of oak trees

humming megaliths and poised horses

waits the muse

who dreams you to life

What do you say to her

when you finally see her

that won’t turn you into a stag?

Here is where you enter the cave or turn back

take the draught of long oblivion

seize a branch of the golden bough

Now you will need all your courage

to let yourself drop

into wine-dark dream

Happy new years everyone,

xS