Tag Archives: community

New year, new hope

It’s a New Year! January the 1st is not only the start of the New Year in the Gregorian calendar, but also the Roman and Julian, so if you’re still following the Julian calendar like the Amazigh people, then we’re in synch. There are of course New Years all through the year in different countries and cultures, and some New Years which move. This feels destabilising. I like the predictability of seasons and festivals. This week I learned that January the 1st is a feast day in the calendar of Eastern Orthodox calenders because it is the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. I’m not sure this knowlege has enhanced my life. And now you can reflect on whether it has enhanced yours.

I did not stay up until midnight. I was pretty exhausted from work so had the most luxurious evening eating a lovely dinner and retiring to bed. My favourite thing about getting older is that I feel less and less need to do what’s expected and instead I do whatever I like! P__ stayed up but he’s a definite night owl, wheras I’ve had to accept that I’m more of a morning lark.

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Mutual aid

A view across Greenland Dock, London in teh early morning when is is dark, looking across at a misty view of Canary Wharf.

Joy is elusive this month. I leave home early and return after a long day in darkness. My sleep is broken and unrefreshing. My dreams are invaded by oxygen flow meters, masks, monitors, and breathless patients. I am tired, but that word is inadequate to describe the omnipresent fatigue that seeps into every cell of my body through the day, and which sleep fails to banish.

 

But there is hope. There is always hope. And right now it’s name is mutual aid.

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