New Year

Well here we are winding down 2023, and waiting for 2024 to make its entrance onto the World’s Stage. What is lying in store for us, I wonder?

In answer to my own question, I started to write this post and found that I was Ranting, Raving and Bitching all over the page. That is Not the best way to start off the year, I mused!

So, I decided to feel Hopeful and to wish for Every One Of You reading this post to feel Hopeful too, even though for a brief moment, and, to Replenish Yourself in order to Greet 2024 no matter what it unfolds!

Last week I tried as best as I could to focus on my usual end-of-year rituals.

I started out by checking all my files and paperwork making sure that everything was in order. It was! However, I did get my blood pressure up again when I was checking one of the folders and saw how my Car Insurance Rates keep climbing up every year when I only drive in my immediate vicinity and have had no accidents. Why? I asked the agent and was informed that it was due to my age. Apparently, the older one gets the bigger are the risks of accidents. And, I had presumed that rule was only for teenagers? Harumph! I really might consider selling my car soon and using a car service. Between Insurance, Gas, Maintenance and Taxes it might be cheaper and less stressful to do so! Something to consider, I guess.

After that task was completed, I brought out the few remaining Pictures and Albums that I still have and looked at all of them. Who knows if I will still remember these People and Places next year? After all, it seems that with every passing year I hear of more and more friends and acquaintances succumbing to Dementia – Alzheimer’s, Memory Loss or however one’s particular condition is diagnosed. As I always tell my children: We weren’t born with Exempt printed on our foreheads! Right?

Finally, I went through my Dresser Drawers and my Closet. Since Covid hit us, we certainly haven’t been “dressing up” for any Formal Occasions. I know that many people still are around the Washington, DC Events Scenes, and other such circles. I am so glad that I do not have any part of that artificial milieu! Nevertheless, one has to have some formal outfits in case there is a wedding, or a funeral, a graduation or some other event. And, all those shoes? Gracious! I haven’t slipped into most of them for ages, and I don’t think that I will. Some are too dainty, or too flat and I need sturdier footwear these feebler days! Anyhow, and although every year I dwindle stuff down, I still seem to have more than I need. We all do! We all have much more than we need of clothes and Everything Else! So, I gather up more stuff for donations!

In between accomplishing these tasks, the Television is providing me with more Sorrowful Images from Gaza, and, as a dear friend said: I feel Schizophrenic. One part of me is at home, comfortable, warm, well-fed and the other part of me is a Palestinian whose “Home” has been under systematic and brutal attack for eighty years – one hundred, as Rashid Khalidi pens more correctly – who has never been “Comfortable” knowing of the Menacing, Merciless and Ongoing Conspiracy against my People, and who has always been aware of the fact that so many Palestinians are neither “Warm” nor “Well-fed!” Yes, Schizophrenic describes our insecure and precarious situation very well! It is truly quite tragic, and it is at these moments that I relive all what my grandparents, parents and uprooted Palestinian Humans underwent, and are still going through! Witnessing that Catastrophe and so much that is Roiling and Churning on Our Planet, I am dreading the Coming Year. They say that: Hope springs eternal? Perhaps!

Lastly, have Yourself, Your Families and Your Friends a Safe, Healthy and Peaceful 2024!