Past and future collide
THE days between Christmas and January 1 are unsettled as we move from the year that has passed to the one yet to begin.
Christmas Day is the crescendo of the year. Your family comes from near and far to gather around a table and wish each other a merry Christmas. The lead up to this day is hectic and exhausting. But the day itself is truly magical.
Our vision on Christmas Day is all about the year that has been. Have we been naughty or nice? Did we succeed in achieving any or all of our goals? Did any of our resolutions stick? Did those that we love pass away? Did we welcome new members to our family by birth, relationship or marriage? Whatever the questions, they are all focused in the past year and how we have lived it.
On January 1, the new year arrives shiny and full of promise. New resolutions have been decided and are unveiled. The conversations with friends and extended family are all about our plans, our expectations and our anticipated challenges in the year ahead.
Our actions as the new year begins, are all about the view forward. We buy new school shoes in anticipation of the wear and tear that our children will cause them. We join the gym, go on that diet or buy the industrial blender so we can spend each morning consuming green vegetables in liquid form. School books are shiny and new. The spines of text books are waiting to be cracked for the first time. January is all about the new year and with it, our focus is forward.
But the period of time between Christmas and January 1 is a wrestle from the past to the future. In that week cupboards are not stocked as they usually would be. For those who are going away, this week is often the week where families run down the contents in the pantry and fridge.
My mother calls this week, “catch can” that is, the week where you catch whatever can flys out from the pantry and make do. Growing up, it was also this week that my father was on barbecue duty every dinner and my mother did not cook or shop. It is the wrestle to stop the routine of the past year and exhale before the routine of the new year starts again.
The weather is turbulent and unpredictable most weeks in Geelong but in this week truly, anything can happen. It is like the weather gods are also wrestling to move from the weather that has been, to the weather that is to come. Thirty-eight degrees on Wednesday. A cool change that rolled in 12 hours earlier than predicted on Thursday. Not to mention the completely uncharacteristic humidity this week that has sent even the most manageable hair into a frenzy of frizz.
The weather at this time of year, seemingly more than at any other is in transition and next week, with the advent of the new year, we will inevitably see more stable and predictable temperatures and weather patterns.
This week is also an exhausting mix of energy and lethargy as we wind down post the crazy of Christmas and find a new equilibrium in the long warm days of the new year. Santa brought bikes for our youngest two children and so each day this week has begun with a blur of post breakfast energy which requires long bike rides to test out new suspension and gears.
The grown ups too are up early and either running or walking the ever-grateful hounds.
Nippers consumes the morning with flags and marching and trenches and sand sprinting but by midafternoon when activity would usually be peaking in our house, on this week, there is lounging on the couch and afternoon naps and board games and card games and craft. It is as if the weight of the activity of the past year needs to be balanced against the need to recharge for the year ahead.
It is fitting that at the end of this week of turbulence and transition there is a night with fireworks and celebration, where you stay up late and step, as the clock strikes midnight, from the past to the future.
In advance of this moment I want to wish you a happy, prosperous and safe passage from the year that has been, to the one that is to come and wish you a very happy new year! Rachel Schutze is a Principal with Gordon Legal, wife and mother of three. [Ed’s note Ms Schutze is married to Corio MP Richard Marles]