I feel like, lately, I’m starting every newsletter with “sorry for being so quiet lately”—and it’s true: I am sorry, and I have been way too quiet. But the truth is, other than the ins and outs of daily life, there isn’t much going on. I go to work, I do my Ninja Writers calls, I come home. I write poems, I spend some time gaming, I watch some TV, and I go to sleep.
It’s a perfectly ordinary, if kinda solitary life.
I don’t have big goals. I don’t have plans for the next year, the next five years, or the next decade. I don’t have much to look forward to, much to be excited for, or, really, anything special going on.
I have hope for great things, but every year, that starts to feel a little less like estel and a little more like amdir1. The estel-future of being able to accomplish great things, have a wonderful career, and travel the world is beginning to fade away; the amdir-future of struggling to pay bills, being chronically disabled and mostly isolated from the rest of the world is beginning to set in.
But it hasn’t won yet. And that’s what I cling to.
Sometimes I wonder if part of my problem with New Year’s is that it happens during the winter2. Even not living in Pennsylvania anymore, it’s cold and it’s dark and my brain, more often than not, decides to go into a full blown depression.
But New Year’s is just a day and, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter that much.
Ultimately, I try to cling to the truth: good things and bad things will happen next year. I have little control over them, and all I can do is hang on for the ride. Hopefully one of those things will be a Big Good thing, and I can have something to celebrate.
I fall back on the words of the great John Darnielle:
“I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.”
(Colbert’s dancing in this recording always makes me smile when I’m feeling down. It’s perfect.)
I didn’t mean for this to be a downer, so let’s end on a hopeful note.
Here’s to the good things that are coming in 2024.
Here’s to surviving the bad ones.
And know, always, that I’m cheering you along. Thank you for cheering for me.
Hoooboy, we’re gonna go into the nitty gritty of Tolkien studies here. There’s a great discussion on the different modes of hope in the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. To wit: amdir is hope that is grounded in predictions based on personal prior experience, while estel is ‘not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being’—essentially, from God.
Yeah, I know. Not everywhere in the world. But the part of the world where I am and have always been.
All the best, Zach. You are my muse forever🦋
I know how some of that feels. But good things can happen.
When Mom died at 91 and left us some cash, my two brothers both bought trailers - tiny houses with license plates.
My wife and I bought a chunk of bush so far from a road we have to buy an ATV to get there across crown land on hunter's trails. And we get to build our own tiny house with no license plate.
The good stuff is the surprising ways that we meet the strange future.
Zach, you have strange things ahead, and you will meet them in surprising ways. Maybe dancing is involved, both arms vigorously in tune with something.
All my best.