Written by D.C. Thomas
Clarksville, TN – Cheers to the New Year!
After 2024’s December, here comes the quieter month when the winter caroling and loud jingle bells fade away in storage bins or memories we made with loved ones. Not to worry – this year’s December will demand an encore of the Christmas classics and new productions for the Winter Holiday season.
Until then, let us ponder the beauty of peaceful days, no matter how crisp, and the floral months that’ll adorn our lives’ course. Every January promises retakes on life cycles, a melting pot of welcomes and goodbyes, goals, and (Oh!) so many sales that won’t make shopping feel like a sprint.
This first month of the Gregorian year brings opportunities for us to follow up on those past plans we might have made yet paused: taking that trip, making that call, wearing that dress, applying for that job, going back to school, or continuing the work we started in the previous year. After all, isn’t consistency the key to good progress?
Because here comes another Spring, another Summer vacation, another Fall to bake multiple batches of cookies while debating the phenomenon of the pumpkin spice latte; a plethora of holidays we can observe alongside friends and colleagues who can teach us or remind us about the importance of good relationships and making new memories. Especially when the health of our lifestyle is connected to the health of the community we live in.
We contemplate our past choices in the present and how they’ll mold the future, the beholder of our hopes and dreams. We are three-dimensional beings on a loud planet in the silent vacuum of space.
Through this prism, we build and contemplate our lives within one of the most intriguing dimensions that rivet our lives in a web beyond this Earth: time.
Here’s my reflection on it – a recurring feeling becomes stronger with each passing year while living through December; each year, this month straddles endings and beginnings while holding one in the powerful grasp of the present because the celebrations enthrall all senses into a mesmerizing awareness.
And so, we contemplate our achievements throughout the year as we anchor ourselves in the towering seasonal celebrations of these 365 days and readying ourselves for the repetition of the months we have just lived for a while now. Yes, each living of the same month has been different, no matter how many similarities one can draw. We grow not only in our own lives but others’ as well.
In December of 2024, I had an exhibit at the Roxy Regional Theatre’s Peg Harvill Gallery in Historic Downtown – a nod to the ‘A Charles Dickens Christmas’ production – and I titled it ‘The Past, the Present, and the Future.’
It was during the time of installing my art on the gallery walls that the promising feeling of contemplating time plays an empowering role in one’s way of being. A similar sentiment would occur each year as I take the Christmas decorations out of storage and place them throughout the house before December 25th.
This time, however, was the most impactful as the art I painted strongly reminded me of family and happenings that echoed throughout the years and steered me in directions I didn’t consciously choose.
The faith and love nestled in the deeper parts of my brain oftentimes prompted my subconscious to choose for me.
Through this experience, I found myself being placed, heart and mind, at the convergence of time’s relative facets: past, present and future. A striking alignment of elements that only summoned hope and clarity – a reassurance that being present also nestles the past you lived and the dreams you assign to your future. Did this ever happen to you?
These three forces made way for an acute feeling of being at the intersection of time’s branches by celebrating a colorful Christmas and painting portraits and symbols through compelling acts of repetition.
One’s aware of personal experiences but also others’ rituals that could prompt dormant memories from childhood, culinary experiences that stir peculiar curiosity, and understandings that evoke comforting lessons of the past for the betterment of one’s future self.
A flood of memories could break through while the oven’s timer reminds you to take out the shortbread cookies and stay ahead of future deadlines. It’s at the apogee of December that we sing, bake, connect, exchange more than gifts and gather through diverse activities that heighten the sense of being and the direction of where we want to go. This time, stowing more wisdom or friendships to help us along the way. Or perhaps more solitude to accomplish the projects without social distractions.
While living in Clarksville, life has felt like an entertaining ride through a revolving door, and it often prompted me to contemplate time from many beneficial angles. I love revolving doors – their spatial movement allows for multiple occurrences and encounters simultaneously. One must only pay attention and not freeze in front of them or get stuck in the spin.
I found life in Clarksville to be diverse and that it grants many opportunities to pair with one’s dreams and preferences for one’s ways of living. I watched hundreds of people gather in Historic Downtown for the Christmas Parade in December. I observed how many of them were mindfully enjoying the passing of the floats and costumed participants who shared candy with their audience cozily settled on the sidewalks of each street.
The pure joy of holding one’s spot to see what’s next reminded me to pause and experience the present and stop running around to photograph the parade from multiple angles. It wasn’t a task anymore. It was living. A joyous one at that. The taste of the candy transported me to caroling in Romania without taking me away from Clarksville or where I wanted to go next.
I have lived most of my life navigating the urban and the rural, and I have found that joie de vivre in both worlds. Throughout the 11 years spent here, my perception of time has changed in the most intriguing way and continues to do so as I travel between these two worlds. I found that the balance between the fast-paced city life and the slow living in my home is the answer to fulfilling one’s being on this planet. The choice to live here has been, without a doubt, one of the best choices I have ever made.
Carpe Diem, and cheers to Clarksville living!
