Old Year’s Day

Did you know that another name for New Year’s Eve Day is Old Year’s Day? Not used widely, in my experience, but logical. Retrospective. Emphasis on the year expiring rather than the year arriving. Despite a personal proclivity for forward-looking and possibility, a year-end review offers merits too.

This day’s, this year’s minutes are too quickly sifting through my fingers and falling into a new year. It’s… an ending. And a fresh start.

[…]

It’s… an interstitial moment, part conclusion and part beginning. The common point where deconstruction couples with construction, the philosophical rebirth. Death. Birth. Phoenix from ashes.

(Source: New Year’s Eve)

Opposites eclipsing. The possible impossible. Vanishing. Appearing. Fading. Brightening. Disappearing. Materializing.

As 2023 exits and 2024 enters, I’m letting go of yesteryear’s appurtenances, impedimenta, and dunnage. Goodbye. Sayonara. Arrivederci. Adiós. Au revoir. But as I bid adieu, there are some awesome apotheoses worth toasting as well.

Restore, Revive, Redux

Over the past year Rosslyn’s icehouse was reborn as a handsome flex workspace and entertaining/lifestyle hub by Pam, Peter, Eric, Hroth, Supi, Tony, Matt, Justin, Calvin, Brandon, Ben, John, Clayton, and many others. The boathouse gangway was restored by Peter and Supi. The exterior trim, gates, balcony, and railings were restored by Peter and Glen. “Paintenance” (painting+maintenance) and hardwood sealing/re-sealing were painstakingly perfected by Kasey, Karly, Glen, Tony, Pam, Steve, and others. Stone walls and terrace were lovingly labored into existence by Supi, Tony, Aaron, Pam, Calvin, and others. Gardens were prepared, planted, and pampered by Pam, Tony, Aimee, and our Amish friends. Icehouse and driveway site work were executed efficiently by Bob and Phil. Trees were maintained and/or remediated by Aaron, Tony, New York State DOT, and the Town of Essex highway crew. Our Essex Town crew also replaced the old, crumbling sidewalk with a safe, smooth, new sidewalk.

Reboot

And while Rosslyn was receiving plenty of TLC, I dove deep into this sprawling exposition I call Rosslyn Redux. Today is my 518th consecutive daily update!

Here’s what I said one year ago.

Yesterday’s post, “New Year’s Eve”, was my 153rd post in a row, completing a 5-month streak of daily updates without missing a single day. It’s an impartial victory at this point with seven months still on the to-do side of the ledger, but it’s an accomplishment that underpins my optimism — indeed my confidence — that I can achieve my goal of 365 days of uninterrupted Rosslyn updates… In broad strokes, this is beginning to feel like actual, believable progress toward resuscitating Rosslyn Redux, my multidisciplinary meditation on the *art of homing*. There are so many reasons why this is important to me, and I’ve poked at a bunch on them in recent months, but for now I hope you’ll just allow that this exploration, this inside-out creative experiment, this quasi crowdsourced inquiry, and the resulting nexus of artifacts and stories and visuals and poems and all of the esoteric marginalia that has accreted over the last seventeen years since Susan and I bought Rosslyn is meaningful. Heck, to be 100% candid, for me it’s not just meaningful; it’s vital.

(Source: New Year’s Day)

Reenergized by successfully meeting my one year goal, I had decided to continue. How much longer? I’m not 100% certain, but I’m aware that I have journeyed far over the last 517 days. Far, but not far enough. I’m confident now that if I can continue this questing inquiry a little longer, I will at last close in on the Holy Grail.

As I close out 2023 I salute all who have contributed to Rosslyn’s growth (and to my own growth) over the last 12 months. Thank you.