Montage

Happy New Year, New Decade, Valentine's Day, Lunar New Year,* and President's Day Eve.** I hope this finds you all well. It's been a little while.

New Year thoughts are things that I get around to eventually. Perhaps I wanted to dip a toe into the fresh year — wait for two New Year's to arrive — before easing into it. The water over here seems fine, and I suppose it's time to get wet.

Going forward usually triggers looking back. Networks love to soften their shows the days up to the ball dropping in Times Square with a string of tape capturing the highlights of the year (a major celebrity death, a shot of soldiers and an explosion, an unknown birth). My wife and I love montages,*** too, so here's a little one from me to you.

First, the blog: Looking over the past year of posts, here are the ones I don't mind recommending:

• "Lessons" (January 29)
• "Bye, 2008, Finally" (January 15)
• "I Lic school" (March 23)
• "Q at 4" (April 22)
• "Who's your favorite princess?" (May 7)
• "Tour and duty" (June 1)
• "The Boy is 6" (June 25)
• "Birthday break" (July 23)
• "The end of a summer that never really was" (September 1)
• "Saints and thanks" (November 22)
• "Believing" (December 24)

Here are a few of my favorite 2009/Year of the Water Buffalo things:

• The photos my wife takes. Most of the headers and pics that appear on this site come from her, such as:

Many of the best she takes flout my No Faces Rule, which means you'll just have to trust me. And then there's:

• The sound of my son reading.
• Q, excited, the day of her gymnastic lessons, and how hard she works to be better.

There is more than this, of course; we always forget more than we remember. But the more I thought about it, about what I found myself drawn to in the year that's just passed, I lingered not on moments but on changes. My son reads now, and he will more or less forever; the world is now a named place for him. Q has found what passion and strength can do for her, and in so doing has found an exemplar of self-perfection that will remain with her long after she's stepped down from the beam and let loose of the bar. And my lovely wife will (among a vast many other things) continue to see us for us better than we can on our own.

But perhaps the change I've enjoyed most of all is the one that can't last. The job and career shifts I've had this year have given me two full days a week with Q and The Boy. I've hatched schemes with dolls and made cookies in the afternoon. I've built LEGO ships and lobbed balls when I would have been dead on the train. Eventually, however, there will be new and more work (there already is), more school, more after school.

This I will take as a moment and remember it just as it is.

Happy New Everything, all.

_______________________

*And DO NOT CALL IT CHINESE NEW YEAR. We will correct you—in school, at work, even in the elevator.

**Okay, so that's not a real thing. But you do have to admit that these few days is quite the convergence of holidays.

***Perhaps it was all of those 80's films during our formative years. Kids these days are, I think, undernourished montage-wise. Have they seen this? HAVE THEY?