When someone tells me a building is “Victorian” I wonder how she’d feel about that. I wonder if Victoria loved the turrets and towers, or if she found the wrought iron work really gaudy and would completely resent that It’s all named for her. Or maybe she wouldn’t hate it but at least would feel indifferent. It seems a pretty arbitrary classification, that the “Victorian Era” should fall between the day she took the throne and the day that she died. And that everything in it should be Victorian simply for the fact that it happened when it did.
But it's just as arbitrary as a year is. And as funny that we lump together everything that happened between January 1st and December 31st when they all have next to nothing to do with each other. Henry Kissinger died and everyone wore bows, and now those things are inextricably linked forever.
I think if it had been up to me to decide how to archive time I never would have thought of years. I’m sure I would have tended first to things that mainly have to do with me, as I’m one of the things of which I’m most intimately aware. I’d dog-ear my life with its most momentous moments, cataloging things that happened in between the second time and the third time I saw Alec Baldwin on the street (fell in love I think, started making matcha at home), or things that happened while my mouse infestation was truly out of control (signed a new lease, wore this one pair of red pants at least four times a week.)
So it’s a good thing that it wasn’t up to me. No one would know what I meant if I said something was from The Mouse Age, and if we’re all going to live together we ought to have a good way to talk about what’s been going on.
In a time when it feels like the ways of living have never been more multitudinous, I’m so grateful for the few things we all share. It’s why when people say “Happy New Year” I’m almost moved to tears. “Happy New Year” is one of the last vestiges of mass culture that we have — the biggest thing since the series finale of M*A*S*H (106 million viewers!)
We have “Happy Holidays!” but it’s much more potent than that. “Happy Holidays” is new and inclusive by necessity, but it lands softly for its breadth, consequently vague and non committal. It’s a phrase that evokes different meanings for everyone who says it and hears it — disparate visions of different foods on the dining table and different pajamas, of different dads, of no dads. “Happy New Year” means the same thing to everyone. It means “I intend to be better or to start afresh and I wish for you the chance to do the same.”
“Happy New Year” bridges human history. At once ancient and modern, it’s one of the few things that sounds as natural coming from the hot and mulleted waitress at Cafe Mogador as it would coming from Tiny Tim. That and maybe “has anyone seen my newsboy cap?”
Regrettably, we’re nearing the end of the window wherein “Happy New Year” applies, and it’s almost time to slump back to opening our emails with “I hope this finds you well,” but the strength of the sentiment persists. I’ll be smiling knowingly at strangers until at least mid-February, buoyed by the knowledge that we all just passed “GO,” that our turrets and towers, our Alec Baldwins, are yet to be revealed. I can’t wait to find out what they’ll be, and I can’t wait for the chance to all look back and start over again together when it’s done.
I love this piece, Kate!! Bravo!!