It’s New Years Day. New Years Eve is for looking back and the previous year and even further into the past. It’s a bit problematic for me (and if you want to know why, you can read the Prologue to Book 1 of the Accidental Plague Diaries – I’m not going to rehash it here) but I did pretty well and even put in an appearance at a friend’s New Years Eve party. I must admit that I did not stay all the way through the countdown as my neck and shoulder were bothering me and I needed to get off my feet and let gravity work on my body in a horizontal rather than a vertical position. This seems to be the best solution to my cervical stenosis and its pain complications but it’s somewhat incompatible with an active life so it’s acetaminophen and meloxicam and tizanidine and gabapentin for the next four weeks until they can shoot steroids into the problem areas again and hopefully make things improve.
So New Years Day must, in counterpoint, be for looking forward. What am I looking forward to? Various things. If all goes according to plan, it will be my last complete regular work year. I got my first job (data entry clerk) in 1977 so I guess I’ll have completed fifty years in the work force at the time of my retirement. I assume that’s enough. Something over 80% of that time was spent in healthcare in one form or other. I feel like I found my niche, helped a lot of people, and did some good in the world so I can’t be too disappointed with my career path over the decades. I have one more year to move it forward and then I’ll have to enter my Eriksonian stage 8 problem solving of figuring out what it has all meant. I’m in the process of cleaning out my academic office (as the whole department is moving and I am not moving with it as I don’t spend enough time in academic work anymore to warrant an office). I’m opening files that haven’t been touched in decades and launching most of the contents into the recycle bin. I am keeping a few things for sentiment’s sake – like the absolutely scathing review I received from the surgeons during my med school rotation. I haul it out occasionally to show discouraged med students that a bad comment or grade is not the end of the world and they’re going to be just fine.
I have performance opportunities to look forward to in 2026. South Pacific with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra is rapidly approaching in the next few weeks. After that, Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci with Opera Birmingham and Carmina Burana with the Alabama Symphony Chorus and Alabama Ballet are penciled in. And then there’s directing The Tempest this summer. I don’t have any plays on the calendar yet but there are a few holes and something is likely to turn up – it always does.
I have a trip to Eastern Europe on the books for the fall through Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. I’m looking forward to that one. I have a slot open for one other trip abroad but haven’t decided yet where it should be. I’m thinking maybe France. I haven’t been to Paris in more than forty years. But something else might beckon. I would really like to get back to Asia.
I don’t know how or what to look forward to in terms of writing for this next year. I’m having a difficult time buckling down as I don’t have structure or deadline. I do my best under pressure. If I’m left too much to my own devices, I put it away and get out a book or turn on the TV. I do have some projects with self imposed deadlines but that’s not quite the same. I really require someone texting me saying ‘I need those pages by Tuesday’ to get me moving forward with all due speed. I have been pulling pieces together from various sources that can be repurposed for my ‘Boom’ book so maybe that’s the first thing that needs to be pushed ahead.
Other things I want to fit in over the next few months: a theater week in NYC to catch up on various productions I have yet to see, a trip to Seattle to check up on the family, and some time at a beach somewhere so I can just walk along a beach and smell the ocean. Maybe I’m asking for too much. When I see the disasters befalling the country and how they ripple through my younger friends and my friends in performing arts careers, I realize I lead an incredibly privileged existence and maybe my energies should be put more towards healing the many hurts out there and less towards self care. I try to balance and do both but it’s not the easiest tightrope.
Get up, get dressed, go out, do good, then have some cornbread, black eyed peas and collard greens.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 