I never make resolutions on January 1 because for me, Rosh Hashanah ushers in the New Year, a time in which I enter a quiet, reflective solitude. But I have grown fond of New Year’s Eve at the end of December: the ritual of friends and family dressing up and coming together on a cold evening, the last-night-of-the-year carousing, the communal remembering. While around this time, I usually have several existing projects that carry over past the ceremonial dropping of the ball at midnight, I do like the ritual of fresh starts. I love nascent hopes.
This December, I started studying Sefer Ha’Zohar (The Book of Radiance) with my father, and I can already see how this will affect the various lenses in which I experience the world, the spaces I thought I lived in, live with and among, as we approach a new, virulent political climate. Even in my solitary study, I hear those outside spaces calling, the clamoring and clashing and loving of those spaces close by and physically far away from me.
I remember once an uncle on my father’s side telling me that the secular world was all a lie, its arts and literature false and empty, that Jews must close themselves off from it, protect and preserve their communities from it. This is a certain kind of Orthodox thinking: the real world is only a strictly Jewish one. The temptation might be innate, for there are strange times of the day that I fight the smallest of withdrawals from those spaces my uncle so fears. But I am the daughter of this secular world and its state of affairs as much as I am a mystical one. I cannot shrink away from either path, and become the human I believe I was meant to be. So perhaps my resolution is to dedicate myself to tenacious study and my writing as much as it is to remain a persistent present in the city I love, in so many spaces that have not one faith but many or none at all, those spaces I’m still learning to call home.
I asked several other poets and writers to share whether or not they make New Year’s resolutions. Their responses are below. Whatever your beliefs or faith, know that the very act of writing is a radical one. The act itself is a resolution to endure, to create, to keep hope alive.
—Rosebud Ben-Oni
Resolutions are contracts we make with ourselves in good faith; our spirits in perpetual conversation and negotiation with our flesh. What am I aiming for? What should I start doing? What habits or connections need to change shape or end? What is paramount at this particular time in my life?
Resolutions can be made at any time, and most cultures tend to include these intentions with the beginning of a new year. How much closer will we get to closing the gap between how we behave and who we believe we are, or endeavor to be? How much discord can we transform into concord on this next trip around the sun? How do we each strike the balance between individual and collective concerns? What courses of action are necessary to move forward in a way that is at least not harmful and at most, healing?
Ultimately, resolutions are affirmative answers to whatever gnarly questions one is facing, expressions of hope—I am showing up to try again, to make firm decisions toward horizons I may never reach; attempts to be as free as possible in this realm.
—Kamilah Aisha Moon
When I was younger, my homies used to say: run up or shut up when they felt a fight coming on. The most memorable use of this phrase: New Year’s Eve 2006. Nineteen and drunk at the Lemon Tree Motel, their words like a struck match tossed at the read-to-go group of young men none of us had invited. Then the fury of brown bodies taking it outside and into the parking lot. Limbs swinging, grabbing, tossing bodies onto cars.
What I mean is not that punching something took care of all my problems. But whether I realized it then or not, the idea would stick with me years after nights like those. Run up or shut up spoke to the urgency of the moment that I never could find in making New Year’s resolutions. Whatever I’ve done for myself hasn’t come from thinking it can wait until tomorrow or next year. Only from going after it Now—failing if I have to—have I ever felt the weight of the responsibility for a goal heavy enough to take it seriously.
—Michael Torres
I’m a bit of a New Year’s resolution fanatic, and I’m always surprised to hear when someone doesn’t have one. I think my love for resolutions stems more from a love of discipline than a desire for self-improvement; I work very well with strict rules and deadlines, and I enjoy setting routines for myself. I also ascribe a great deal of importance to “beginnings”—I add another set of resolutions on my birthday, which is conveniently midway through the year (June!). My resolutions generally involve daily rituals; in recent years I’ve resolved to, every day, draw, take a one-second video, read a poem, and record what I’m grateful for. But I also set large-scale goals—to finish a particular project, or to be kinder. One year, I wrote a list of one hundred little things that made me happy (things like eating an ice-cream sundae, buying a new record, or hosting a dinner party) and resolved to do them all. I haven’t solidified my resolutions yet for 2017—there’s still time!—but I know one will be to keep a nightly journal, which I did from high school until recently. Large-scale, I’m aiming to be braver—and to finish a book.
—Leila Chatti
Growing up, as midnight of December 31 approached, my family would feast on the tamales my mother had made and maybe some cinnamon tea or hot chocolate if we were lucky, wish each other a happy new year, and go to bed. A tradition of some friends—champagne and a grape to go along with each New Year’s resolution recited at the stroke of midnight—seemed extravagant to me. When I thought of specific goals to set for myself on the first of the year, the only one I could summon was to exercise, to become athletic, more like the other boys at school. But I never did. I think that for my family every morning out of bed was a necessary resolution to go on, to endure the bitter reality of poverty, to keep our dreams of a different life alive. The stroke of midnight at year’s end was another day’s resolution accomplished, and a moment to marvel at a year’s worth of resolutions carried through. Today, fortunate enough to have seen many dreams realized, I could make bolder, concrete resolutions, but I’d rather marvel.
—José Antonio Rodríguez
Write more. Dance More. Have more sex.
—Lorna Dee Cervantes
Of course, as the end of the year approaches, I’ve started to think about resolutions and whether I’ll be making any. For many years, I resolved to read more, to work out more, to spend more time improving my body and mind. Over the years, I’ve learned to embody these previous resolutions—I read and workout more every year. This year I’ll shift my focus.
This coming year I will practice something that costs me my time—something that doesn’t come in abundance these days but certainly I have more time than money to give. I will resolve to practice giving my time to community and social justice organizations. I resolve to find at least one organization every month where I can volunteer. If I can use my time to make a positive impact in local and national marginalized communities, then I will, and I should.
I’ve never been the type of person to wait to do something, especially if it’s the right thing to do. I was raised to believe that if I had a choice to do the right thing then I should do it. If we can help those who need us most then we should help. There’s no pain in being kind and if giving some of my time is all it takes then I’m willing to make the time for it.
—Ruben Quesada