This is the moment, of course, when we all wish each other a “Happy New Year”. Although I don’t know personally the majority of my readers this is a good moment to wish this for you. Whatever it brings I hope that the coming year will not bring more of the same! I was tempted to wish you a “return to normality”, but then I managed to stop myself when I realised what “normality” probably means … in general terms if not for each of us individually. I think that we could all do without a return to the warfare, displacement, poverty, disease and the venality that is such a large part of the world to which we are (sadly) accustomed. So instead, I will wish you “new life”, in its fullest sense, both personal as well as collective.
What about myself? Well: I think that I will wish myself “new art”. Looking back over the past two years I have experienced a feeling of discouragement, affected as I have been by the pervading sense of depression that the current pandemic has brought. There have been “green shoots” of new possibility during the past month, and I would like to believe that these can grow.
Asked some years ago to sum up what I believe (an impossible task) I responded that “there is nothing that cannot be redeemed”. So perhaps at this time, as we face a new year, I need to remind myself of that, and commend it to you as an idea worth hanging on to.
Happy New Year!