We are on the cusp of a new year, the year 2026 according to the Gregorian calendar. Many of us have developed a habit of making “New Year’s Resolutions,” notes designed to improve on the lives that we live, or to change the habits that we now eschew. I remember some years ago when the editor of this publication published her resolutions for a new year, though I cannot remember what year it was. I found her “Resolution No. 8” to be intriguing and I adopted it for that year, though I don’t think I made any other resolutions.
According to the Web site History.com, the ancient Babylonians “are said to be the first people to make New Year’s resolutions,” 4,000 years ago. Their celebrations for the new year did not begin in January, but in mid-March, “when the crops were planted.” The Babylonians had a 12-day festival where they either crowned a new king or “reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king.” They also made promises regarding the debts they owed and objects that they had borrowed. Do good, the gods would favor them; fail, and they would be in the disfavor of those gods. In ancient Rome, emperor Julius Caesar “tinkered with the calendar” and in 46 B.C. established that the new year would begin on January 1st, the date that we in this country still observe. As History.com noted, most of us do not make resolutions to please “the gods,” but to commit to self-improvement. And most of us fail. But hey: we don’t give up.
When our esteemed editor made her list of resolutions in that year that I cannot remember, I latched onto her “Resolution Number 8,” which was to “write more poetry.” I thought of it this year when I was walking hand-in-hand with my youngest granddaughter, away from Irvington’s Ellenberger Park on North Hawthorne St. My granddaughter has embraced my love of birds, and as we walked up the street, she tugged on my hand. I stopped, and she pointed to a utility wire that stretched between the houses and above the trees. I stopped to look with her, and we quietly observed a line of Rock Pigeons swaying on the wire. We watched for a while, then moved onward toward my home. I see pigeons on the wires often, and the poetry of that moment with my granddaughter boils within my creative brain; I resolve to make a poem about those birds on the wire, and I have yet to do so.
My youngest daughter gave me a “creative kit” that she found in a thrift store, saying to me that, “I know that you want to make art, so… make art.” I used to visit the Magpie Studio and Gallery on S. Audubon Road in Irvington, where I would draw and paint and marvel at the creative expressions of the other artists. I’ve not been there for a time, but I resolve to go back, and be a more frequent visitor and creator.
Some of the creative things that I do involve photography, and during a deep dive into my back-up hard drive, I found something that combined my photography with poetry. I had taken a picture of a friend at her wedding; she was leaving the church and my photo captured her flowing veils as she climbed the steps toward the street. I used that image and imposed onto it a poem by Alan Dugan. “Love Song, I and Thou” seemed to describe the love that my two friends had for each other.
I resolve to make more art and poetry.
cjon3acd@att.net