The New Year - Death Cab For Cutie

There'll be no distance that could hold us back

Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash

So many people I know engage in a variety of sacred rituals at the end or the start of a new year. Things such as:

1. Write out all the things they hope to get rid of or excise from the prior year, burn the list over a fire and then make s’mores over the ashes.

2. Write out all the things they hope to add into their lives in the coming year. Take that piece of paper, put it in an envelope and mail it to a close friend with the instruction to give it back on the next New Year’s eve. The idea being that they’d realize how much more (or less) they accomplished than imagined.

3. Create a formal list of resolutions. A list that probably contains such items as:

   • Eat less processed foods

   • Exercise more

   • Drink less alcohol

   • Start a gratitude journal

   • Work less, play more

   • Cut back social media time 50 percent

   • Less Netflix, more hikes

While I’ve always appreciated such rituals, I found that whenever I’d make resolutions, I’d attempt something ridiculously ambitious and unsustainable.

Take 2019 for example.

I decided to create the 365 Albums project.

The idea was that I would listen to an album in my music collection (either CD, album or iTunes/Spotify) and write a short essay based on that album. I already had a Wordpress blog so I decided to add these writings to it.

It essentially was the precursor for Earworms and Song Loops. But I was trying to do it EVERY DAY. Not once a week, which is what I’ve been doing here since early May.

Amazingly, I made it to March 26th, 2019 before I missed a day. 85 straight days.

And then I kept going with it on and off at about a weekly pace until July, when it became about once a month. But I did end the year with 130 sloppily written essays.

You can read them if you like here.

Stopping to reflect on the person I was 4 years ago when I started that insane 365 Albums project, I have only admiration for the mildly deluded and uncertain storyteller and music appreciator I surely was, for even considering such an undertaking.

It was my initial attempt at a music memoir, a way to tie an album to a memory.

Trying to do this every day, though, didn’t allow enough time for true reflection. Some posts caught the flame of inspiration and seem complete, but others, reading back now, clearly could have used a few more drafts to find their true shape.

I wonder if I’ll look back on this first year of Earworms and Song Loops and think the same thing about these writings.

The very first piece I wrote back on January 1, 2019 was about Genesis’ 1986 multi-platinum selling album “Invisible Touch,” and more specifically, the song “In Too Deep.” I seemed to have already broken from the album concept of “365 Albums” on Day 1, or maybe I came up with the album concept on January 2nd, as I did stick with the plan on day two.

One thing is for sure though. This is one of the worst album cover designs in history. But it’s still a great album! I stand by this opinion as strongly today as I did 4 years ago.

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For 2020 and 2021, I intentionally decided against making any new year resolutions.

The slow death of the 365 Albums Project scared me away from such proclamations. I didn’t trust myself to consider even mildly-attainable goals. With the pandemic arriving in early 2020, I was glad I hadn’t made any grand plans.

In early 2021, I enacted a conscious uncoupling from my job (of 12 plus years) as a video editor/videographer. I was suffering from chronic carpal tunnel, ate a poor diet, and hardly exercised much at all (I blamed the pandemic and the fact that I couldn’t go to the gym). On top of that, I was dealing with taking care of my aunt who lived alone (in a mobile home park 6 hours away) and had to have a live-in caregiver during the first year of the pandemic due to her worsening dementia. And I no longer had any desire to work in the career I’d spent the past 30+ years establishing.

Despite all this, I continued to participate in two zoom-based writing groups, two online meditation sanghas, and took zoom yoga when I was able. I took my dog on long walks in our lovely Oakland neighborhood every morning, knowing I didn’t have to hurry back to commute to a job or even to my home studio.

By the end of 2021 I felt a lot clearer on what I wanted my 2022 to look like.

I wrote out a list of all the things I wanted to say goodbye to from 2021 but I did not burn the pages. I also did not make s’mores, even symbolically. Only because I was trying to cut back on my sugar intake. I do love me some s’mores.

I set out for myself a fairly ambitious list of goals for 2022. In addition to the items in #3 example above, I also added:

• 16:8 Intermittent fasting (eating only between 12pm and 8pm)

• Write 750 words in a journal first thing in the morning (morning pages)

• Meditate for 20 minutes daily

• Yoga daily

• Listen to music as a main focused activity (not just as accompaniment to washing dishes)

• Figure out what I want to do when I grow up

Amazingly I was able to keep to those goals for almost 9 straight months. And I didn’t beat myself up too badly when I fell off the daily practice wagon in September.

And starting a Substack newsletter was not even an inkling of a thought until April 2022. So the fact that I added in “write an earworm essay every week for the rest of the year” to that list — I’m gonna give myself kudos for that.

Go see my film “Emily The Criminal,” now on Netflix!

Does that mean I’m all about the new year’s resolutions for 2023?

Well, I think I’m gonna go with the same list as 2022. It did me well this year and I don’t want to rock the boat.

I did figure out what I want to do when I grow up and that is become a professional dog walker. It is now a reality, and I’ve got 15 clients whose dogs I regularly walk! So I suppose, “keep learning the biz” can be my resolution for 2023.

But I can totally relate to not making any New Year’s resolutions or giving this numeric change of chronologic identification (NCOCI….you can borrow my acronym) more importance than it deserves.

I do think it’s important to have rituals though.

In my weekly online sangha, one of the topics for reflection during our meditation was what sort of rituals do we already practice and what new ones might we want to develop to deepen our sense of connection and community.

It’s a big question and I am still contemplating the answers. I do know I resist participating in ritual for ritual-sake.

Some years, rituals around New Years feel right; other years they don’t.

A song that speaks to this better than any other I can think of, is Death Cab For Cutie’s “The New Year.”

From their inarguably best album, Transatlanticism (2003), “The New Year” is the album’s propulsive opening salvo and a clear signal that the band is not going to hold back emotionally for the next 45 minutes.

So this is the new year
And I don't feel any different
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance
In the distance

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
Or self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

This so perfectly captures the way we act as if some designated time, some party or celebration is going to mark a big change. “This is the new year and I don’t feel any different.”

It’s not a cynical voice; it’s a weary voice perhaps. A voice that sounds angry and a bit lonely. Who maybe wants to be able to let loose, to join with the crowd, with their friends, but can’t understand how people can party when everything is so fucked up in the world.

Which is why the bridge of the song is so powerful, not just sonically — as the rhythm and melody become a bit more danceable, less heavy and staccato — but lyrically.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogues bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back

There'd be no distance that could hold us back
There'd be no distance that could hold us back

The narrator recognizes the “make believe” aspect of celebration, but at the same time craves real connection. Wishing the world was flat like the old days symbolizes taking things slow, not hurrying from place to place, from party to party, from accomplishment to accomplishment.

The song ends on a hopeful note. Perhaps a fantasy, or another “make believe,” but the vision of finding interpersonal connection that is not limited by lines on a map is one I can get behind.

This is my last post of 2022, and once again I want to thank you for reading and for not unsubscribing!:)

It will also be my last attempt at getting you to become a paid subscriber to Earworm and Song Loops of the year! Right now I have 3 paid subscribers, if I can get to 10 (or even 6), I will be oh so inspired to add more special secret content to lord over the rest of ya!

So whether or not you are a resolution maker or resolutely against resolutions, I wish you a fine and prosperous and safe new year and I’ll see you on the flip side with some more earworm stories.