On New Year’s Eve a great thaw struck the land. Temperatures soared into the high thirties and forties. Ancient banks of snow and ice melted to form behemothic puddles of mud and slush. Work was slightly discomfiting, boorish customers complained of competitive prices and quasi-generous yippies donated bags of outworn clothing, requesting write-off slips to save money in April.
I slipped out of work early and went and bought a six-pack. Walked a few blocks to the old Teton Theatre, which opened in 1941. Went in for the matinee; found an aisle to myself, kicked my feet over the front seats and popped the cap of a beer. For three hours I watched a rampaging colossal ape pound T-Rexes, save beautiful blonds, and climb New York Skyscrapers. It was a very enjoyable experience at matinee prices.
Meanwhile the plastic-surgery gang was readying in Times Square. A million gathered to watch the Ball drop with Dick, while another three-hundred million poised in the eye of their teles for the unrivaled kairotic moment. I imagined the streets in the morning littered with shredded paper confetti, perhaps some top-secret documents shivered for the celebration. Dick was having his make-up applied for the fourth time, his toupee realigned and pace-maker set for the r-u-s-h.
Around that time I was walking home. I was thinking about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, about the subsequent celebration underway which I had no intention of joining. I was also remembering an obsolete newspaper article of last week’s. Something about scientists adding one “leap” second to the world’s atomic clock. They were doing it out of general boredom and lack of physical or mental exercise; due in part to the Earth’s rotational slowing. Apparently, this would be the 23rd second added since 1972.
It brought to mind the fact that not only are our views on the passage of time persistently different from one to the next, but we also live within the bounds of cut-and-dry time zones which are difficult to scientifically posit. That coupled with the fact that of the five clocks in my home (wristwatch, two alarms, telephone, and oven) no two are the same or even within a minute of telling. This fact never seems to ill-effect anything substantially. What an incredibly insignificant notion and invalid piece for the front page!
It recalled a time before the year 2000 when I shared a home in Olympia with my first lover. We lived in a habitable duplex a few miles from the campus I was attending. Our shelves were full of new age, self-work type literature that we heartily hustled into our home and devoured as prophecy. Metaphysical adventure novels, I-ching translations, and numerous astrological texts. One day in accordance to our hopes of enlightenment we veiled or stored away all the clocks and exiled two mirrors to the closet, in the company of the water-heater. We hoped that such travails would repay us somehow. We were young, optimistic, naïve and in love.
It’s interesting how thoughts and memory connect together haphazardly. An invisible chain of recollection sustains and continues itself. Seemingly unaffiliated remembrances spur the propagation of deeper introspection. I was caught in such a cyclical bind.
Nearing midnight I fastened my yaktrax coils to my running shoes, dressed smartly for the cold, and donned a headlamp. Heading for downtown my feet glued to the slick sidewalk and waded through icy puddles. I always feel like Spiderman when I wear these traction apparati. I reached the city centre at the stroke of midnight. Strolling through the downtown park I heard the collective roar of drunken half-hearted whooping. Lecherous ghouls were leaning forward on pretty women with their drooling labios puckered for osculation. Likewise, unfettered lassies crooned for a little romance in the tight confines of a sour saloon.
I couldn’t stop smiling as I looked up into the sky, peering at the few stars visible above the lamplight. Fireworks lit the sky sporadically, lifting from the backyards of mansions and three-car garages. This is how I brought in the last New Year when I lived on the Atlantic. I spent the evening alone walking and jogging the streets at midnight.
I like the lonely sound of distant voices collectively hollering. And in this snowy setting, I reminded myself of a content Grinch overlooking the Whos singing carols in Whoville. I could hear elk on the refuge bugling in the distance. I imagined their frightened eyes musing the city and its idiosyncratic racquet from afar. I thought about the dogs and cats huddled in doorways and beneath tables, scared as shit. And then I walked home.
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