Paths and Windows

Painting by Bei Wei


Paths and Windows


Everyone has their own reaction to the end of the year.
Inescapable holidays. Unstoppable chronology.
Opportunities gained, and others lost.
Family, friends, loneliness,
or just peaceful solitude taken at home,
while the rest of society swirls
in a mad dash of annual tradition.

I start and stop with Thanksgiving; beyond that,
no other holiday captures my time or heart.
I count myself among many who view Christmas
with a cynic’s raised eyebrow
Some people truly adore their families
and anticipate the yearly holiday gatherings with delight.
For others, the odd discomfort of being artificially thrown
into a food-infused petri dish with people
simply due to a shared a strand or two of DNA,
speaks only to the absurdity of social expectations.

While I have little emotion for what December represents,
I do love January. I love the new year.
I have a birthday soon after.
I love getting older, racking up more experience,
filling my life with more emotions and people
and musical discoveries and mistakes and joys.
It’s all real and it’s all vibrant and passionate.
Each New Year’s is my time to hope
and envision and dream and plan.
And and and.
There is always more that tugs and invites.

I see this time of year as a series of paths and windows.
Directional choices made and yet to be determined,
and views to external and interior landscapes
defined by my heart and its frailties.
This is what has meaning to me.


Alex Shapiro


Posted as prose over on her site Notes From the Kelp