Usually a New Year celebration entails resolutions and promises to oneself about what will be different this year. I know a lot of people with drastically different traditions ranging from mundane to quite extraordinary. I would not claim to have any traditions that have been standing in the last few years. The last few are not immediately memorable; however, after some contemplation I can recall what happened about that time.
Last year found me in good ol’ State. While I cannot remember New Years Eve, I cannot forget driving to the top of one of the nearby mountains, setting up beach chairs in the snow on the winter solstice and watching the lunar eclipse. I still have pictures of myself bundled up like some arctic explorer. The year before that I was in Israel and spent New Year’s Eve at a dance party on the beach. The Year before that is starting to strain my memory.
This year saw two wonderful surprises. I did not make really any plans far in advance for this one. In fact I woke up New Year’s Eve without a plan at all. While I’ll confide here that when the ‘ball fell,’ or rather when my watch read 01/01 (since the NYC ball wouldn’t fall for another seven hours), I was in my apartment doing some home work. I didn’t even realize how late it was until 23:53 when a friend wrote me a note. The basic gist was that I shouldn’t be home with an hour left until New Year’s Day. Well, I looked at my watch for the first time in hours and laughed. They were an hour off and I had a grand total of seven minutes until the end of the year.
Now I can only imagine some of you are either not surprised of wondering what could possibly possess me to be home and doing work on New Year’s (let alone, what I could have possibly done in that case warranting this drawn out description). Perhaps the end of the day is not really important; however, it brings a little closure to the day. The truly amazing part was nearly twelve hours earlier when I spent a few hours of the afternoon with one of my friends here in town and learned a little about cooking. It started as just having tea, and soon enough I learned how to make chai, followed by an absolutely delicious zucchini creamy soup. The hardest part was not eating it before it was ready it just smelt that good!
Not only did we enjoy a delicious meal, and I learn a new recipe that I am going to look forward to trying as soon as I can get out to the mall to buy an immersion blender (I’m starting to look forward to cooking), but I returned home carrying a goodie bag, Chai concentrate and recipe included. Following such a happy afternoon I felt energized to return home and work. Intermittently, I finally got around to decorating the room a little. Some color was finally thrown onto the wall; however, it isn’t the typical college wall collage of friends, family and pets. My parents might recognize it to be similar to my wall at Stanford: four maps now hang near my desk surrounding my the calendar. There’s a map of the distribution of Muslim populations from Western Africa, down through Indonesia and up to Kazakhstan into Russia. I’ll tell you there’s quite a bit a green. There are also detailed maps of Syria, Libya and Sudan (including the line for the border with Southern Sudan). I guess not what many of your were expecting.
The second wonderful even happened on Sunday night, and served as a great new year’s present. I’m not talking about the train which certainly made that night interesting; but rather a trip that included heading down to Tel Aviv Namal. If you want to learn more about what happened, check back later this week and part two of this new year entry will appear, and that I promise you. I hope that each and everyone one of you had a happy and safe new year’s celebration, and that this next year will be filled with joy and love.
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