We all have rituals by which we bury the old year and unveil the new. I end each year fighting with my roof. I have a 100ft pine tree in the front yard of my Virginia house, and an oak of similar size out back, but somehow it’s always the end of December before I deal with the debris. Pine needles blow through the yard like snowdrifts and oak leaves poke out of the gutter like a haircut I had in the 1980s. I sigh and make a resolution to do better next year.
I don’t know that I handle life’s larger matters much differently. It’s difficult to remain attentive to the torrent of minuscule but unceasing alterations, both internal and external, that collectively comprise our lives and the lives of those around us. My six-year-old daughter’s tastes change as rapidly as clutter piles up on the flamingo rug on her bedroom floor; I’ve barely registered a trend before it’s lost, one archeological layer down. We drift comfortably out of touch. And if life jerks us awake and shows us things as they really are, we resent it; we yearn for a quick fix. So we are suckers for dramatic – especially New Year’s – resolutions.
