The New Year Will Be Just Like the Old Year with Some Small and Let's Hope Not Too Harrowing Differences

We marked the new year by walking around the Morris-Jumel Mansion, where roses continued to bloom. It was difficult to talk, because we -- like approximately eight billion others -- were preoccupied with the passage of time: Was it really possible that it was now 2016? Apparently it was, but neither the mansion nor the roses seemed much concerned.
Clio, despite already being a mother of six, was probably not much more than a year old and so hadn't given much thought to the passage of time. Initially she was curious and possibly even intrigued by the idea. 
But like so many who have grappled with the question, she soon became disillusioned and started quoting philosophy. "The soul is pained by all it dwells upon," she said, paraphrasing Pascal.  "Time is a small, impenetrable bastille with a broken window through which we can sometimes see until someone covers it up with a piece of plywood." -- Elektra I did my best to capture the spirit of Eugene Atget, whose photographs of tree roots from 19th-century Paris are said to be a great source of inspiration to the visionaries seeking to lead our country into the next phase of its existence. 
I was personally very moved by what Ted Cruz said about "natural beauty being a salve to the lesions of time." We stopped to watch the new year's parade (of ghosts) that occurs each January 1st on Sylvan Terrace. The next morning, I woke up early and ran to Fort Tryon Park, which continued to resemble a coral reef. Or to be more specific, a coral reef that had not yet been killed off by rising sea temperatures, horrific viruses, or the anchors of cruise ships dragging across their fragile seascapes, as I recently observed in a video clip on one of the blogs I read. I had to admit that as much as I dread the future, it's probably worse if you're a tropical fish.  I continued to be amazed by this plant with purple berries. If you were the girl from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," you'd probably think it was candy, try to eat a cluster, and get really sick.

Lately we've been watching -- or in some cases, watching again -- the films of Yasujiro Ozu, the great (gay) Japanese director who worked in the mid-twentieth century. One thing that's interesting about his movies is how many of them basically tell the same story: there will be a family -- usually a widower, but not always -- with a daughter of 23 or 24 who everyone decides "needs" to be married, and the rest of the film will occupy itself with how everyone works to make this happen. A suitable bachelor will be found, the daughter will either like or not like him, but in most cases she will feel torn about leaving her father (or mother, or both) to fend for himself/themselves, but she will finally succumb after the parent insists that it is best for the daughter. (Note that Ozu lived with his mother until her death, however, and himself died less than two years later.) The end of Ozu's movies often show the bride-to-be on the morning of her wedding, when dressed in the formal Japanese makeup and kimono, she often looks much less like a person than a doll or a thing. Any emotions she might have are subsumed in the ceremony and the bustling happiness (is it forced or not?) of those surrounding her. There is a quiet but crushing sense of sadness as this ritual unfolds. Whether the sadness comes from the wedding itself, the passage of time, or both, is not a question that Ozu seems interested in answering so much as asking. I decided to be optimistic about the coming year. Unless something really drastic occurred, I could expect to take many more pictures of Fort Tryon Park. Really, what more could anyone ask for? It's like watching the same story over and over again, but with slightly different details, each one sad and beautiful in its own way. I stopped to talk to one of the gardeners, who told me that she had spent the day picking up leaves one-by-one out of the heather plants. I told her that she basically had my "dream job," and we both laughed. She wasn't paid any money for the work she did. Some day, I thought, I would spend my days volunteering at the park (and the cat shelter). It was comforting to meet another leaf-obsessive. We understood each other on a very deep level after exchanging just a few words. A river of succulents flowed down the crevice of the rocks. I think that this gardener's cottage might be the only structure remaining from the original estate on which the current park is built. Back at home, Elektra pondered the future. I didn't tell the salvia that in the coming week, temperatures in the teens were being forecast, which if true would almost certainly mark their death. "I hate the stupid salvia anyway." -- Eletkra "My resolution is to sleep as much as possible in the new year," said Zephyr, which seemed like a pretty good idea.