There are only two more days in the year; it feels natural on some level to look back and see what’s happened. It’s a feeling I have been resisting in some way, because such a retrospective draws lines that are too firm. “It’s been a difficult year, but it got better,” for example, leaves out too much. In the midst of that difficulty, there was a lot of joy, and even as things got better, there was still a deep well of sadness.

I don’t, however, know a better way to talk about it. Which is, in a way, why I haven’t done much talking in the second half of this year. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, but every time I try, I get wrapped up in the act of telling a story that’s far bigger than me, and end up having a hard time saying anything. I feel as if I actually do the world a disservice to simplifying it enough to fit it neatly into this text window.

I’ve thought more than a few times about giving up Tinctoris, letting it rest after so many years, but I’m not ready to do that. I believe that there is still something good about this site, and that I have something worth communicating.

So, what can I say about this year, heeding the disclaimer of the first few paragraphs? If anything, the image that keep coming to me is that this year has been about emptying. If you looked at my studio at the beginning of the year, and now, you’d see a physical analog to what’s been going on internally. Some things I let go, some things just drifted away, and some left before I had a chance to say goodbye. I feel emptier than I did at the beginning of the year, and if I sit quietly I can still feel the ache from many of the absences. I don’t know if that will ever truly fade.

On the other side of the duality, many things have been brought into me this year; some of them so joyous and wonderful it makes me cry with happiness, some I’d rather not have invited in. But all this newness is a part of who I am now, and I must accept it with open arms.

This might sound depressing or fatalistic, and it may be, but it feels comforting to me. Life is full of gain and loss, pain and joy, and every year is like this. Going through my past year-end posts, I read a lot of “this year was pretty bad, but next year will be better.” Well, next year will be what it is, and I’ll be there with my eyes as open as I can make them.