INTO 2012 WITH LOVE

2011 requiem

for one who started with such uncertainty, 2011, such hesitation, and confusion, oh year of ones and firsts,
you have been a year of surprises, twists and turns, of joy and love and revelation – of shock tactics!
and – in the end – of something going towards a certainty

you have given me something more than any year – arbitrarily demarcated as they are – before
but it is hard to say what something is when it's framed so heavy-handedly by silly numbers

2011, you have shown me different cities, different languages, many different homes
you have shown me old and new, old in new, and new in old, and all the connections for self and other in between
geographically, emotionally
you have introduced wonderful people, reconnected me to long lost ones in ways I could have never imagined
you have shown me what love can be about in oh so many forms, friends, family, lovers, partners, romances, colleagues – I want all these words to mix into something far less narrow and insufficient
what word would we use to describe the love that is everywhere around us?
the love that appears in various forms but is largely the same love manifest through different beings and circumstances?
I guess this is why there is no word

2011, you have shown me that this love-thing can transform, and that transformation is beautiful somehow, always, both in self and other
you have shown that honesty and frankness are undoubtedly the way forward in all respects
that people deserve to know the world and that we all must endeavour to discover it, together

you have revealed to me, in quick succession and with necessary brutality, the forces behind our little society – the fragile façades that maintain our precarious existence – the quivering barrier between what-we-think-is-happening, what-They-tell-us-is-happening and The Real

the challenge is to get as many people as possible aware of these barriers, their careful construction -
and knock them down!!

2011, you have taught me that the answer is almost always 'yes' and that you really never know who or when someone will ask you a question

you have reinforced a hundred times that it's better to leave the house than stay inside alone (even when They make outside increasingly difficult to exist in, render the public obsolete)
outside is where the possible and potential collide with the self and all those other selfs who have bounced themselves outside their homes and into the realm of potential encounters
you never know when your random route is going to collide with the random route of a precious other, a fortuitous situation
so bounce around!

you have shown me that competition and individualism are poison to the soul and are to be avoided if we want to foster relations not based on conquering, profiting or capitalising upon the other (and selling the self)
you have proved the opposite is in fact true – that by sharing, giving, inviting, asking, linking, forwarding, introducing, opening relations, by really relating,
competition becomes something absurd – for why would you want to beat those who are yours and who you belong to and with?

2011, you have surprised me more than once, you have thrown curve balls and knocked me down, you have given me opportunities and changed my fate – many times – you have provided much music, dancing and so many laughs, you have given tears and made my decisions hard,
you have made my work confused and destabilised what I thought was direction
but you have also given me something in return, something that must needs only exist already-destabilised

you have presented people and events which, both 'bad' and 'good', I was not (of course) wholly prepared for,
the former I hope to have dealt with in a manner true to my progress and the latter I thank you deeply for sending
(and vice versa?)

for everyone there and here and around and with whom eyes and smiles have been shared, thank you
and go well

for 2011, you have shown me something the way