January has the quality of a held breath — the year not yet committed to being any particular kind of year.
The calendars are new. The resolutions are still plausible. The credit card statement from December has not yet arrived.
I walk the same roads in the cold that makes everything precise — edges sharper, sounds carrying farther, the sky a kind of blue that only exists in the absence of heat.
There is something I like about this suspension. The year could still go anywhere. I haven’t made the mistakes yet that will define it.
Somewhere a list is being made. Somewhere someone is buying a better planner.
I stand in the cold a little longer than I need to and think:
this is what beginning feels like — uncertain, specific, a little cold, but open.