What's new about it?

What exactly is new about a New Year, other than it’s changed its age? 2009 becomes 2010 and we are encouraged to remember it as baby Millenium reaching its tenth birthday. All that does is make all those over 20 wonder where the last ten years have gone and what’s to show for them? We are hardwired, all of us, around the world, all creeds, all races, one way or another, to sit up and take notice of the passing of another 12 month cycle. But, it’s just another day. The sun shines (where I am) and the birds sing. The tui continue to hound all-comers off their particular flax stem, while the bellbirds slip to and fro waiting for their opportunity to see if there is any honey left. But, like the old year, all the sweetness seems to have gone.

I don’t like the hype around New Year with newspapers telling us what to eat, how to slim, how to exercise, what to wear, and how to improve our lives. Surely to God we know all of that? It’s the Silly Season for newspapers and they’re relentlessly full of that sort of garbage. Anything to fill up the pages. But it does give cause to reminisce no matter how you try to avoid it. It invariably makes me depressed; the march of time, imprinting itself heavily with the passing years. More time spent indoors than out, in front of the screen, keeping up with technology, trying to keep up with the increasing pace demanded by increasingly anxious and worried parents.

Up at the bach, I can pretend time is standing still. Not much has changed in 40 years, other than the addition of an indoor loo and tiny shower room although the old long-drop is still functional and often used in the summertime when rainwater is short. I was asleep when the New Year slipped in, but I woke to hear the sirens and fireworks set off by the enthusiasts down in the bay.

The first day dawned bright and sunny, the same as the day before and the one before that. We seemed to have got the best of the weather where we are, certainly better than at home. I spend most of my time holding the ladder while the husband paints the hellishingly high second story of the matchbox bach we share with others in the family. Our Christmas guests and family have all gone their various ways, the young seeking the excitement of massed gatherings waiting, readied, to welcome the New Year. It has ever been thus and I well remember desperately escaping the ‘Olds’ in order to find my own excitement and promise of a wondrous new year. It’s not that I object to the kids’ departure, but we both miss their fresh take on the world as we sit around cynically discussing the failures of the world’s leaders. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the world’s leaders, the country’s leaders, or my own job, the expression ‘pushing shit uphill with a stick’ tends to come to mind as I realise the truth in the maxim of one step forwards, two backwards. There is an invisible, relentless force that makes one believe inexorably in the principle of inertia. No matter how hard you push for something to happen, there is a force that pushes back, equally hard, and just says, whaddya mean you want to change the world, make things better, more workable, achievable, or equal?

It’s not the best day of the year, for me, but you have to start somewhere.