Bonne Année

On New Year's Eve and the promise of manifesting a bold, radical energy

A Paris shop window, December 2019

Five years ago today we were in Paris to celebrate the new year. The trip, which had been in the works for at least two years, had both gone as planned and then again not at all as intended.

The journey, which would also include visits to Madrid and Barcelona, had first been conceived of as a way to usher out my forties in grand style—a birthday present for myself for managing to stay alive and in one piece for so long.

A consolation prize too, I joked, for becoming officially middle-aged.

Because my birthday is two days before Christmas it meant that we would skip the usual family gatherings and fly out a few days before my big day so that I could turn 50 in the City of Lights.

And then, shortly into 2019, we received devastating news: My mother had lung cancer that had already metastasized to her brain. That was mid-February and despite aggressive treatment, she would be gone just ten short weeks later.

Her death, to say the least, scrambled and rearranged me. Suddenly, I wanted to be home in California for Christmas. The thought of France seemed bittersweet. In hospice, my mother had told me she wanted to see Paris again; instead, she watched Notre Dame burn from her hospital bed.

We would still go, I told myself, but my birthday celebration could wait a few days.

We traveled to France with our good friends, Tim and Gerri, a few days after Christmas. My mother’s death was still fresh within me. I was raw, wounded, mournful and yet also hopeful for a better year, even if it would be a year in which I could no longer call her, could no longer expect to hear Honey, it’s your mother, I'm just thinking of you. Call me when you get a chance on my voicemail.

Paris dazzled. It was my first time and the city didn’t disappoint, even as the weather remained persistently gray and drizzly. The sparkling lights, the way the sun, when it did finally appear, bathed everything in a permanent state of the golden hour, the sight of a waifish girl riding her bike, a baguette tucked into her front basket.

Paris in the sunlight, 2019

Everything was exactly as I’d imagined.

For New Year’s Eve, the four of us hadn’t made big plans, content instead to stay in for the night. Tim cooked a ridiculously delicious dinner, and we all drank good, cheap wine from the corner store.

It was cold and raining outside and we were all just happy to be there.

At midnight, tipsy, we crowded onto the balcony at our Airbnb, a sprawling third-story flat in Paris’ 10th Arrondissement. The lights outside glistened with cheer, and we laughed as we counted down the clock.

This will be the best year ever, we shouted into the night sky.

Shivering, we returned to our flat. Maybe we’d watch a movie or listen to music.

Then, the door intercom buzzed. At first, we couldn’t find the button to push to respond but when we did someone asked a question in French.

Wrong flat, we yelled at the intercom, laughing. The buzzing stopped.

And then a few minutes it later started again. This continued for at least another half hour.

Buzzzz. Push the button to respond. Someone yells something in French and we yell back, wrong flat, laughing.

Eventually, however, we realized that while this ever-continuing parade of people might have the wrong flat, there was something interesting going on. Music thumped and vibrated through the floor above us, voices grew louder, thick with excitement.

A party. A party.

Bravely or drunkenly or both, Tim and I decided to explore, traipsing up the broad, spiral staircase to the flat above. There, we followed a group of young people into a dark, smoky apartment. It was even bigger than ours—huge rooms with large windows—and crowded with twenty-somethings. Pop and disco played loudly through speakers and bodies teemed on a makeshift dance floor. After walking through to assess the entire scene, we decided that we needed to join this party and rushed downstairs to retrieve Cory and Gerri.

Back on the fourth floor, Tim canvassed the room, striking up conversations here and there, until he finally stumbled upon the flat’s tenant, a man named Oliver who, once he knew who we were, heartily invited us to stay. The party, he told us, was a Jewish celebration for young folks, but we were more than welcome to join them.

And so, we did. We crowded around tables and chatted as best as we would—only Gerri really speaks French, but we tried. We danced to French pop and sang Lizzo on the karaoke machine. We hugged total strangers and laughed until our faces hurt from smiling.

This is the energy I want to take into 2020, I said that night, more than once. I want to crash strangers’ parties in France and I want to live with the kind of bold, radical kindness that opens doors and constructs bridges toward a better humanity.

This is the energy I want to take into 2020, I thought to myself again. Best year ever.

And then, of course, 2020 happened.

Many people mark 2020 and its ensuing pandemic as the dividing line between the Before Times and Now. For me, that distinction still shuffles backward several months to April 2019 when my mother died. Yet, of course, there’s a distinction, nonetheless.

Before. Now.

As it turned out, 2020 was not the best year ever and that party-crashing energy stayed firmly back in Paris hovering on the liminal cusp between 2019 and 2020. Madrid and Barcelona were fantastic, but the pandemic, we would soon realize, was chasing behind us, ready to upend, rearrange, and scramble everyone into an entirely new reality.

In 2020, we did not live boldly or radically. We did not crash parties. We mostly stayed home or took solitary drives to nowhere. We visited friends from a distance or through tiny computer windows. We dropped cookies off on porches for the holidays and throughout it all, my mother remained stubbornly gone. If there was one person I would have wanted to talk to that entire year, it was her. If there was one voice I wanted to hear, it would have been hers.

Honey, it’s your mother, I’m just thinking of you. Call me when you get a chance.

Now, five years later, it is the last day of the year once again. I am feeling a little melancholy, but also hopeful.

It is already early morning in Paris where, I hope, in a fourth floor flat in the 10th Arrondissement, Oliver is again welcoming guests, friends and strangers alike, to dance and drink until the sun rises once more.

What energy do I want to take into 2025?

Do I want to crash strangers’ parties? Maybe. Sure.

More than anything, I want to root myself in that tipsy declaration I made thousands of miles from home: I want to live with the kind of bold, radical kindness that opens doors and constructs bridges toward a better humanity.

It’s never too late to try and try again.

Bonne année, mes ami.

The Goodbye to All That 2024 Edit

Where You Hang Your Head: Inarguably, the biggest thing to happen in my world this year came when we decided to buy a new house. We had been looking on and off since the summer of the pandemic and finally the right house came along at the right time--or at least the right-enough time. Although the move (and ensuing sale of our old, beloved house) put me permanently behind for the second half of the year, I am glad we are here. One thing I realized this fall as I scribbled bits of writing, is how much the idea of home permeates my work. I’ve moved around so much in my life and the longest I’ve ever lived in one house is in our previous house, clocking in at nine years. I do hope to surpass that milestone here.

Good Grief: I didn’t read as many books as I wanted this year (see above, being permanently behind) but two nonfiction books remain with me months after I finished them. Hua Hsu’s Stay True, a memoir about the murder of his best friend, and Sloane Crosley’s Grief is For People, about the death of her close friend by suicide. Both are bracing, philosophical and in their own ways, life-affirming.

Sound Clouds: Unlike last year, my most-listened to song of the year was not decades-old. This year, Americana artist Sierra Ferrell topped my list with “Dollar Bill Bar,” followed by songs by Waxahatchie and Kacey Musgraves. I also listened to a lot of Gillian Welch. Although Dua Lipa and Doja Cat were also in semi-heavy rotation, I realize now, looking back, that the year called for a heavy dose of reflective listening. Sometimes that’s where we’re at and it’s OK.

Here, there, and Somewhere: I had the chance to travel a bit this year—New York twice, a cross-country trip from Florida to Kansas. Joshua Tree, where we got to see the Lemon Twigs in Pioneertown at one of my favorite venues on earth. We also saw the Rolling Stones in San Jose, and my friend Rosanna took me to see Madonna in Oakland. I hope 2025 brings me to new places and familiar places alike once again.

Returning to Center Again and Again: I didn’t finish my book in 2024, but I wrote two chapters and an essay and in a year that felt as though it alternated between treading water and trying, desperately, to make my way out of the deep end alive, I’ll take it. The creative practice isn’t always about completion, but sometimes just the act of returning to find your center again and again (and again).