Year: 2019.
Setting: Houston. This city wet, gray, and sunny, makes room as I write and write. A groove, to test readability, performs miracles. Why simple, when the poetic rests elsewhere in teacups. Meanwhile mate, pronounced mahteh, cools besides my hot computer. Can’t write about what happens, what is witnessed (I), but will write about the surroundings. A bird chirps, no reply. Trucks roll by. Trash pick up came, the other today. This city is a grand opus. The time is morning. Hello.
Foreground: I look around and see friends in love, sisters doing their own, happy parents and a world. I think what could be improved, aside from my cursive “r” and fellowship, a career, diplomacy. Words come to me, back to front, bottom-up, as metaphors and ellipses. Jotted down line by line they are, twisted too, like marshy moats spiraled wayside and anew. All that matters is the this-and-now here. Sense is for slot machines. This-and-now becomes the diagnosis and the cure, because to know is to heal, to heal to love, as friends and family help tie the knot.
Resolutions.
1. Be more creative and expressive in writing and spirit; this involves speaking what comes to mind in the moment it comes, writing judge-free. That is, I want to publish a collection (of short stories, poems, essays, translations) that demonstrate artistic scope.
2. Connect; not more or less, but plainly and fully, connect with friends and family, new friends and new family, the old too, the far away as well. I.e., Social media once a day, then, at least for a little bit everyday. Charm, and be moved by others, everywhere.
3. Marry. Apply for PhD. Submit my taxes for a refund. Teach with heart. Move to Europe. These things will make me happy. Will make others happy, too.
Denouement.
Read, why are we doing this? Ladies and gentlemen, the time is now, let us be clear. I never ever did no new years resolutions, but I’m going to give them a try. I like bullet points, I like sticky notes, I like laundry lists. They help. What’s that about the left brain, that it organizes? I want so many things, but so do you, and so does the next chavón. New Years is arguably the best party of the year. It could be with six of your friends only, or just as fun at a raging holiday dance orgy. To quote a lady friend, “in 2020 we’ll be able to wear the new years glasses again using the 0s for our eyes.” That’s about as deep as this holiday needs to be. I don’t know what else to say. The fluff came before, the numbers after, so this, what is it? A little explanation, a little wheel spinning. One can cruise on the page, you know.
PS: A brush recap of 2018.
Wrote a novella, wrote a thesis, kept up the blog religiously, read a bunch, facilitated a college course, supported language learners, graduated, went to my first world cup game, dated, broke up, fell in love. Fall of 2018, work was a “mother-bitch,” to quote another friend of mine who may or may not come to the family-friends new years party this eve (by the time this post posts, we all will have toasted to 2019, and kissed.) Spring was the holy grail. I had a writing-life schedule: up early, write for hours, exercise, read or TA for a badass philosophy class, eat dinner, study, sleep. Brilliant, right. Then came the summer, unassuming at first yet unforgettable at last, like a nail before and after it’s driven in. To complicate the year, I have never made so much money, but then again I have never owed so much as well. I paid my first college debt payment in three years two days ago. 2018 was fun to look at. Now we got 2019, which looks so adult. Feels, it does, like a bowl of plums, moist, juicy, ready to be eaten. Shall we bite?
PPS: To conclude, bulleted lessons learned in 2018
• It’s not what you say, but how you say it: speak from your chest, mean your words, out loud sharing of inner most dreams creates world in your vision: the dream ends when you wake up, but your life starts when you build upon your dream.
• As a general rule, what you really really want for yourself is actually good for everyone around you: self-improvement improves your relation to everyone around you: “what’s good for the goose”: when you strive to become a lawyer, doctor, counselor, you actually want to help others. My deep wish this year is to publish a collection, yes it’s for personal reasons, but also because if what I want is a successful book then I want it because it would give something to the reader, like a laugh, a thought, pleasure, stimulation; not to mention add to the libraries of this world, to literature: the dream is big: what good people want is good for everyone.
• Free will is to determinism as act is to react.
• There is such thing as the perfect person for you.
