{#winterlight: liminal}

I’m already tired of people’s predictions.

Days into the annual interstice of just-finished and not-yet, and already the air is thick with the blether of people telling us how next year will be.

As they, too, were surprised by incidents in this current year, I am disinclined to take much heed of them.

This does not, however, have much effect on their speaking.

We spend a lot of time waiting, in life. Airports, post office, doctor’s offices, only the vaguest idea of what will come next, of what more will be required of us. This week between the last holiday of one year and the first of the next always puts me in mind of the labyrinthine waiting rooms in medical centers, moving between a series of larger and smaller waiting rooms down astonishingly similar beige-and-green hallways. It’s always a relief to just get out of the whole building.

Of course, it always occurs to me later that maybe the waiting bit isn’t the worst part…

Oddly, at the time of year when we’re most supposed to be keyed in to other people, Christmas and New Year’s people tend to become super insular… which is why it’s a lonely time for many. Getting all of these jolly cards and holiday posts on social media, it might be difficult to remember that there are people waiting for an answer, waiting to feel better, waiting to see if their test comes back clear… we need that little bit of hope in Pandora’s jar.