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All is quiet on New Year’s Day
A world in white gets underway
I want to be with you
Be with you, night and day
Nothing changes on New Year’s Day
On New Year’s Day
—U2, New Year’s Day
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Found myself beginning the new year this morning walking to the studio through the woods in the dark before 6 AM.
Like the song says: Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.
I always think of this song on New Year’s morning because there is always a preternatural quiet on these mornings.
Today was no different.
It’s an absolute stillness free of all noise. Even the deer whose eyes glow green in the light of my headlamp as I scan the forest, make no sound. They are motionless and when they finally move there is no snort of alarm, no crunch of leaves, no breaking of branches.
Just a stealthy movement of shadows against an empty void of blackness. It makes me stop for a moment just to listen, trying to absorb as much of that quietude as I can with the hope that I can recall this glorious absence of sound when I need it at some point later.
It makes me think of the old Elvis song If Every Day Was Like Christmas with its lyrics that ask: why can’t every day be like Christmas? I think a more appropriate question would be why can’t every day be like New Year’s Day?
The pressure of the holidays is past. No concerns about gift giving. It’s a fresh start, with the old and worn last year fading into the grainy grayness of the past and the new year stepping in, all shiny bright and full of potential. Even the most pessimistic and jaded of us most likely feels at least small glimmers of hope on this day.
And why not? It’s a clean slate, a tabula rasa, on which anything can written. It is a time, a moment, that assures us that there are no limits on what we can do in the coming year and the coming decade.
Of course, the pragmatic part of me knows that it is just as the song says: Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.
But this morning, at least for a while, I will try to hang on to the belief that there is change coming in this shiny new year. For the better, I hope.
Here’s the song New Year’s Day from U2 from way back in 1983. Time flies so enjoy this quiet morning.
Happy New Year.
Redtree Times 