HAPPY NEW YEAR!
No. I haven't gotten to the white wine yet.
That's because †he sun isn't over the yard-arm yet. I don't have a boat, but that's when they say drinking usually starts. But what direction must the boat be facing? It is, I think, a silly designation. One drinks when the occasion is right.
And the moon won't be up until tonight.
It happens to be New Year's' Eve for folks of my persuasion - 5769! It commemorates the day that Mankind was created. This year, it falls on ... tonight! It ends October 1st.
It's interesting to have a New Year in September - or October. It's an olde calendar, so it's based on lunar cycles. That's half the fun - never knowing just when the new year will appear.
I also have a New Year to celebrate at midnight, December 31st. This year it will welcome the arrival of 2009. It arrives on the same day every year because it's based on a solar calendar.
So I celebrate both.
One New Year is for assessing your past year, admitting your mistakes and thanking the Creator for letting you make it so far, even so.
It's also for asking for forgiveness, remembering old friends, repenting your sins and mistakes, praying a lot for mercy and courage, and vowing to do better in the new year.
And it's a time for blowing horns, and dancing and drinking.
The same thing happens at the Jewish New Year too, except it goes on for days, and you repent and fast for a day, and then eat a lot the rest of the time.
And blow horns and dance and drink.
But one New Year comes when the world here on the East Coast of the U. S. of A. is usually barren and frozen. And the other comes at harvest time.
Both make sense in their timing.
Lots of things start in the autumn. The seeds and fruit that ripen and fall in the autumn go into the ground to wait for spring. Even as things seem to be dying, there will be a rebirth. And many things are brewing under the snow in the winter around here, sleeping until spring. Even as the world seems forsaken by life, it will be reborn. So both holidays celebrate Hope. And both new years' observances are for celebrating life, being grateful for it, and noting the passage of Time.
So what's the link betwixt a new year and Fiction?
The world of Fiction defies Time. The world of Historical Fiction lets a reader and writer travel through Time. And the world of Historical Romance allows both reader and writer to revise truth, ignore Time, and create a happier world that exists outside of Time. That's the lure of it, the core of it, and the joy of it. At least it is for me.
And so just as I celebrate two new years, I realize that I can't predict what will happen to me or thee in either one, and am forced to contemplate the fact that we are all at the mercy of cosmic forces we can't fully understand. That's why I write fiction. And I 'll bet that's why you read it too.
Is it?
So I wish you a gladsome, joyous new year, filled with promise and hope, and the joys of health, wealth, joy and Fiction, whichever one or two or three new years you celebrate.
.....
L'Shana Tovah!
Happy New Year!
