Chance = Change

...is actually a quiet thing...oh sure, cities like New York, and others everywhere, large and small, like to make an enormous noisy thing of this particular passage if time....we need to control it somehow, i guess...and perhaps by making it as loud, drunk, free-wheeling and crashingly filled with light gives us the sense that we are actually controlling the passage of that thing we call time...of course, Time, its own creature, goes inexorably on with or without us, and seems to benignly smile at us when It sees us cavorting around in Times Square, and wearing funny hats...drinking to forget what we've done or to face what we are about to do...It smiles down and around us...not with condescension, but with the wisdom born of...well, born of itself: TIME. TIME. All of a sudden...POOF!!! The seconds have
travelled by,and.....we are in another year of life!

I remember as a kid...probably a teenager out on a noisy drunk date, I remember that moment i realized it was such a quiet thing. The midnight hour.. WE celebrate it.It does not celebrate Itself. It simply IS. DOES...continues. And I remember, perhaps on the same date..I remember realizing that Midnight is not all that late at all! Hitherto that point in time, I had experienced 12:00 MIDNIGHT as the forbidden frontier past which I had not much travelled....so, a New Year's event in my life probably was also the occasion for my growing up in a particular way: I understood that time fies, and that life is short....one fateful New Year's Eve, in Atlanta ,Geogia, in some Ladies Room at some club or something...I remember that so clearly. How is it that some memories stay with us like that? I think because something shifted...and i was different after that moment of understanding. I think I became sadder. Wiser.Thus, sadder.

Ah, the sad drama of the awakening teenager Yep. Sounds like me.

All that being recalled, Peter and i had the most wonderful evening last night.
We entertained one friend and one friend only: Chris Keeslar, from around the corner. Worn out by so much Christmas activity, we felt like being home, and in passing Peter had mentioned to Chris to come over....and so...as it happened, that's what he did! And three bottles of Champagne later, plus some delicious foods we prepared to nibble, I had gotten to know this man better and, I feel, acquired a new friend!! AS IT HAPPENS, Peter has known Chris K. since he was 5 (FIVE!!!!) years old!!! They grew up together in the same Detroit suburb, and went to the same schools,etc.!!! Paths diverged. Almost two decades pass. And all of a sudden, Chris initiated a search for Peter (since he too was now in NYC being a book editor), and what do you suppose? They discovered that yet again, they live AROUND THE CORNER FROM EACH OTHER!!!! Half a block , if that!!!! Yes, a true story! So, right away, they began hanging out this year, and playing pickup basketball games in a local court, and sharing computer games...BOYHOOD REVISITED! But also, getting to know
the men, the wonderful men, they each have become.

I found it comforting somehow, to share the New Year's Eve with this particular old friend of my young husband. And the three of us chatted away the hours...dare i say: seriously talked, really talked, about a wide range of things, and it was good.
A very good quiet thing. The horns blew, the lights flashed, and the hats were tossed, mere blocks away, down at the brilliantly illuminated Times Square...one million people squashed together to feel the throb of being human...and we talked the time away, until it was 2006. We barely noticed it. But of course we did make note. How can we not?

Even the people who stubbornly refuse to stay awake to mark the passage of one year to the next, are marking it in their own ornery way, right?

I have to witness it. Rather like a car wreck. Tick tock...things come...to pass.

It has been a swell week...we went to the movies with Paul and Steve and we saw a wonderful thing: MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS, starring Dame Judi Dench, Bob Haskins,et al..and it was so much fun...directed by Stephen Frears, in an extremely romantic, lush, colorful and nicely sentimental way... I so enjoyed this true story of a rich woman who boughtm, renovated and presented shows in an old rundown prewar London theatre....lovely.

See it if you can. Wonderful costume designs. Lovely acting. FUN.

And today, we dismantle our dear Tree and put it out on its cold street corner. Sad. But , again, a quiet thing. A part of the passing of time as we know it. So, we shall dismantle slowly. Especially since Peter is still a' bed, Sleeping It OFF!!

Hey, you all: THE BEST OF EVERYTHING IN THE COMING YEAR TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! BE WELL, HAPPY, CREATIVE, HONEST and BRAVE!!!