The 24 Days of Blogging, Day 2: A Sense of Ending

As I look at that title, it suddenly feels much more ominous than what I intend, so breathe easily.

When I was explaining this yearly exercise to someone beside me, she asked me, “Why do you do this in December? Is this a Christmas tradition?” As I started to explain the ten-year origin, a desire to increase my number of blogposts per year by a final push, I realized that beyond the mercenary (I make no money from these, so mercenary is probably the wrong word…probably something to do with vanity), I’m not sure why do I do this in December. So, as one is wont to do, I stated enumerating reasons.

• Christmas obviously has something to do with it, and the traditions of counting down, whether through the weeks of Advent or the various hiding places of the Elf on the Shelf, make a natural framework
• Likewise, Christmas provides quite a bit of color through the charming and absurd accoutrement that accompany its approach. How can I ever forget my discovery of the Caganer, the pooping nativity figurines, or the Catalonian log that poops out presents when the family beats it (the scatalogical nature of holiday traditions is undeniable)
• The shortening days, the darkness, and the cold always put me in a pensive mood, and I’ve tried to capture that in my writing
• December is thee last month, so it is a natural time to take stock in one’s life, one’s accomplishments, and one’s direction.

Last?

What makes December the last month? Another month follows immediately afterward without a break…we usually celebrate that every year. The month itself has as many days as any other month, and though the days grow shorter, culminating with the shortest day of the year, they are getting longer as the closing bell rings. What is the lastness quality that December has that all other months lack?

When I began spouting these questions to the person next to me, she remarked that this observation had all the validity of a stoner questioning, “Why are hands called hands, man?” And I will admit, that I am being somewhat willfully naive here. I know there is the convention of the year, and a calendar has to have a final page. Blame Pope Gregory, I suppose.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that, with the exception of the impending inevitable end of the world which we are currently courting with the ardor and and entitlement of a football captain pursuing a prom queen, our experience of the the natural world is that it goes on. There are cycles of seasons, reflecting cosmic positioning and rotation, but each one follows the other, and there is no first or last…what is the first season? Unless you are looking at a Vivaldi album, there is no first, and no last. Nothing magical happens on midnight of December 31…it just keeps going on.

I think that this tendency to think of firsts and lasts is one of perspective. While the world does keep going on, we do not, and while I am reasonably certain that January follows December every time, I know that in a frighteningly few years (“Why are they called years, Man?”) I will not.

So December is a metaphor for our own mortality, and that might be the best reason to take this time for writing. I want to examine this life before it ends, even though I know that December will lead to January…and I hope that I will too.