I feel immensely fortunate. I’ve had a really good year. In anticipation of the need to perhaps engineer some of my own fun, I had planned “23 celebrations for 2023” – in which I would ask different friends to pick something they wanted to celebrate (with the caveat that they couldn’t choose something they had celebrated previously), make a plan for how to celebrate it, and we would then do that thing.
Things started well! Chris and I celebrated trees, Lucy and I celebrated sweet potatoes, Anna and Naomi and I celebrated extreme temperatures (a dip in the Edinburgh sea in Feb + a back garden sauna experience), and Logan and I celebrated spring.
After these 4 celebrations of 2023, I became distracted by just generally having a thoroughly lovely time. I was kept busy by a job change, painting the house, and having a series of lovely celebrations to attend. After the previous year feeling like a bit of slog, it feels lovely to think that I can only really write about life’s fun for my end of year reflection. There aren’t many years that I would relive in a heartbeat, but this would definitely be one of them.
This year I’ve enjoyed getting my 5k parkrun time to under 30 minutes, taking Faith and Marin out 4 times, and allowing my book-reading ambitions to escalate. I had set myself the goal of reading 4 fiction books to incentivise me to overcome the strong gravitational pull I have to non-fiction. However, in the course of doing this, I picked up the habit of reading (aided by many train journeys) and then decided to set myself the new challenge of reading 52 books (one per week of the year).
I’ve really enjoyed surpassing how much I thought I could realistically read, and it’s been really gratifying to have a reason to keep borrowing books from friends. As I’ve read more, I’ve discovered more that I’ve wanted to read. So while I don’t think I’ll read quite as much this next year, I have very good list of books on my ‘to read’ pile that will keep me going.
Partly because of leaving the planned celebrations behind, I’ve been more conscious of the spontaneous moments of fun and celebration. I love a sense of occasion, the anticipation of it, and its arrival. I also love the unofficial traditions like spending Boxing Day with Sian and spending three hours watching Christmas specials together. Even beyond that, are the little happenings which are all to easily forgotten down the line.
Some little happenings of 2023:
- (Possibly my favourite night of the year) Seeing Olivia Dean perform in Leeds with Kristin and Olivia commented from the stage on our (mostly Kristin’s) harmonising. On the way back it was snowing so heavily that we struggled to convince a taxi to take us home. We managed to get a taxi with a couple of people that I knew of via another friend (much to their surprise… and my total delight!) and take a very snowy photo to capture the moment.
- Sitting next to Mick on the coach to Whitby. He called me Claire for the entire two hours there, and when I got on the coach for the return journey went “Hmmmm, now, what was your name again….” (I was not holding out hope!) “Ah! It’s Rachel”! Mick gave me a hug as we arrived back, told me to enjoy my life, and said “whatever you do, I hope you’re very successful”.
- Going along Brighton pier with Alice, and because we had no cash, tapping my card on the change machine and hearing the clunky cascade of £20 materialise into coin.
- Faith and Marin using suncream to stick leaves to their noses.
- Listening to a train passenger make up the phonetic alphabet (O for octopus, D for December, S for sugar)
- Singing happy birthday to Terry in the framing shop
- Embarrassing Logan at parkrun by sticking his hand up as a first-timer + running the last leg with him
- Performing a solo with Lindsay at choir, and her whispering in a rehearsal just ahead of us singing – “You’ve got the power, Rachel!”
- Waiting to be seated at Maveli’s with Jacquie and the restaurant owner turning to us gleefully and saying “Success!” as the people at the table (finally) left, and subsequently enjoying some poppadoms and Indian sweets on the house
- Playing Catan and Dad deciding to disrupt things by intermittently placing a harbour over the squares and mischievously declaring “climate change”
As I reflect on a year that has treated me very kindly, I am simultaneously very aware that this is a year that has been really awful for others I love very dearly. It’s not a circle I know how to square.
After Benjamin Zephaniah’s death, his friend the author Lemn Sissay wrote in a tribute:
I was on my way to the Chanel show in Manchester, I had been looking forward to it all year. I was on the train from Hackney into Liverpool Street Station at around 11.30am when I received the call from BBC World at One. I shouted to the people on the train “Does anyone know the poet Benjamin Zephaniah?” The carriage went deathly silent. “He’s passed away”. I don’t know why I did that. Shock. I was in shock.
What a beautifully arresting paragraph! I think it describes so well the deep urgent need when you are grieving or in pain for some acknowledgement from the world which goes on oblivious.
I don’t know how you are feeling as we approach the year-end. However you are, may you be blessed in the midst of your blessing, and blessed in the midst of your lack.
thejoyofrachel 