via Hennie Stander / unsplash
Forget for a moment, the space that separates us. Place is not my current focus. It doesn’t matter where you are or where I’m writing this, only that you’re reading now. The arrival of the New Year is a perennial reminder that time is an ephemeral thing. The countdown has been reset and soon the months of 2023 will begin tumbling past us, one after the other.
The days are long, a familiar expression goes, the years are short. What about the months though?
So far, January has been plagued by a gnawing lull. In the month or two since my last post, I’ve reached what feels like the quasi-completion of my experimental oral history project JOURNEY(S). I shared the current, full-length version of the five-part anthology to a limited audience in Addis Ababa, and during a virtual screening, hosted by Black Women Radicals. I also submitted my final grant report and deliverables to my funding organization HumanitiesDC. Presently, I’m preparing for an exhibition and discussion event in Washington, DC, in collaboration with HumanitiesDC, where I’ll be sharing audio excerpts. Meanwhile, I’m submitting JOURNEY(S) to a few festivals and pursuing more funding opportunities to see if there’s potential for distribution and expansion.
My hope is that these seeds being planted will yield harvest in the coming months. But, despite all my creative progress, I feel both aimless and expectant, preoccupied and directionless, as if awaiting some external catalyst, as-yet unseen. Confessing the same palpable energy, one member of my faithful writing group Horticulture described herself as “adrift.” I instantly related. I wondered, is this simply an experience shared between us or a symptom of the season itself? Are there specific emotions that emerge each month? Following that train of thought, I went back to a poem I wrote last winter.
November speaks / soft like the whisper of last words / breathing another year goodbye / with the fall of leaves / and the quiet dance of skeleton trees
From here, my mind moved through the calendar year. I tried to imagine the traits of the remaining months and what they would have to say for themselves.
December listens
January waits
February dreams
March creates
April ponders
May reflects
June knows why
July forgets
August stirs
October sleeps
And then, at last,
November speaks
About a week ago, a poet I follow on Instagram, Ariana Brown, who teaches creative writing, posted a prompt that encouraged further poetic predictions. Or, rather, manifestations. Brown asked fellow writers to author a poem initiated by the phrase “I deserve ...” The outcome, she explained, could be “a long list of things you deserve in the New Year” … “specific things like a food you want to try or more abstract concepts, like peace of mind …”
(Subscribers scroll down to see what I’m conjuring in 2023.)
As I prepare to meet the remaining days of January, I know there’s no way to anticipate what the year has in-store. With no tangible sense of what will bloom, the best I can do is wait and write patiently.
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