This morning, we say good-bye to Cluckity-Cluck-Cluck, and the 8,760 hours of life that was graced in 2024. This is year 18 of such mental meandering and I'll forever be grateful to the class of 2007 and the class of 2008 (A'ight!) for recommending I keep a blog so they could keep up with me after I left Kentucky, went to Syracuse to earn a doctorate, and eventually settled into life as a National Writing Project Director in Connecticut. I've been writing daily since 1992 - the year I went to London as a 19-year old. At the time, recording the last year of my teens seemed a promising habit for an English major. The greatest writers, after all, were committed to craft.
This past holiday, too, I watched a Walton Christmas with my mom, and there was something about John-Boy's journaling of Walton Mountain that caught my attention. Although I'm more Geek-Boy than John-Boy, I realized while watching the film that I have a similar genetic make-up. I'm unsure if I am able to break the habit of journaling daily (and I still appreciate the fact that moving to digital spaces opened a doorway to audiences in a way that a notebook-on-shelf does not). I've also thought, too, I need to one day look over the years to add to Ralph Fletcher's brilliance, The Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You, to harvest the gold from 18 year's off blogging. What might I find that could be drafted for another generation of readers to read? Perhaps that will be the goal of the 20th year, as I'll have two decades of material.
As always, I post on day one of a new year a video-recap of memories, a tradition I'm also unlikely to break. Each year I like to go back and watch the life that once was with the images I captured set to music that helped to tell the year's story. The music is copyrighted, so I set these videos to unlisted (as I never got into the art of reflection to make money...perhaps one day I'll figure it all out...how to capitalize on being alive).
The bee lives less than 40 days, visits at least 1000 flowers and produces less than a teaspoon of honey. For us it is only a teaspoon of honey, but for the bee it is a life.
It's occurred to me recently how silly individuality is in the grand scheme of things, unless you realize how the individual is best only when carrying forth traditions they hope will benefit the future generation. I, of course, am invested in communication, teaching, and writing - an art form I hope to be carried forward long past the time I have life.
This, too, includes, democracy, diversity, voice, inclusivity, equity, empathy, and joy. I'm realizing every creature is born into a world that's harsh & cruel, but their species continues with productivity, labor, instinct, and nature. Because of our post-ape-like brains, however, we should be able to be more rational. Ah, but the canines in our mouth bring forth more vicious instincts...hence the state of the world right now. I'm supposedly rationale, but I haven't been able to rationalize any of it in the past 12 years. I just know that the world I inherited is not the one I grew up in (which I'm starting to understand to be the case for everyone throughout history).
My teaspoon of honey will always come through words, education, community, & the possibilities we might cultivate together.
Hence, the blog for 2025, where I'll continue to strive and do all I can to feel alive within the insanity. I'm not making resolutions or promises, because I feel like I do that for myself on a daily basis. Fighting off love handles and man boobs, and trying to tame a manic brain throughout my entire life, is what has built the basis of my character. This is the labor of a bumble-Bry who is buzzing ahead to his 53rd year to find the nectar of the Gods while he has life.
Here's to us all...may it bring the rhythms, patterns, traditions, frustrations, worries, celebrations, chaos, and serenity that each and every year brings. Let's enjoy every second of it, making sure that our wings are spread out to accept the warmth of the sun and the flowers that have yet to bloom.
Ribbit Ribbit.
