beNaked2012

I must be settling in here, because fewer blog-worthy existential dilemmas have been pushing me to write lately.  Maybe I am just tired.  2011 has been a huge, monumental, gargantuan year in so many ways.  Most of the days instated to mark the passage of time, despite all their promise, leave me drifting in the doldrums, feeling no different than I did before.

But New Years' Eve is important to me.  It's not because of the traditional midnight kiss--I don't think I've ever kissed someone special right as the year was changing.  No one I was in love with, I mean.  It's not watching the ball drop: overrated at best.  It might be because I claimed it, because it remains relatively uncelebrated by our family traditions (no special church service).  I make sure to touch base with someone important, or to be with fun, happy, positive people as the year changes.  I'm superstitious enough, or theological enough, or emotionally intelligent enough to believe that the beginning of something colors the middle and end of that something.  Whatever the reason, the anticipation that carries me through December 31st tends to become refreshed satisfaction when the year changes.

Thrilling start to 2010.

I could trace it back to NYE 2007, Cortes Island, British Columbia.  I came to my uncle's farm in mid-late December, reeling from my first semester of college and the unfamiliar insecurity that turned my world upside down.  I was used to getting great grades without breaking a sweat.  I was used to having my crew around me, the same people who had come up from 7th grade together through all those ch-ch-changes, the people who knew all my history and all my loves and my foibles up to that point.  And suddenly I was wiped clean, and I could choose what of that to bare, with great effort, and what to banish to the Dusty Attic of Secret Memory.  I didn't know who I was or what I stood for, and most of all I was exhausted of holding myself up without the flying buttresses of people I loved and trusted existentially and unconditionally.

My cousin Maya is a year or so younger than I am.  Our reunions usually start with a few moments of awkward silence before our mothers herd us into another room and shut the door, and then shenanigans ensue.  We spent the break running wild over the farm grounds, imagining epic adventures out of the errands Aunt Donna had us run, creating photo storybooks of ridiculous incidents.  We gave each other drastic haircuts and left piles of coarse hair on the carpet ("You were TWO FEET FROM THE WORKSHOP!  That hair will NEVER come off that carpet!")  We ate an entire trunk-ful of California oranges, carted up by Gramma & Grampa in the little 2-door from Yreka, tried to weasel dirty secrets from our elders, and begged them to let us share their alcohol.

Case in point.

So New Years' Eve arrived and we were feeling restless.  I had to leave early the next morning and we were restless, because we'd already used up our wildest ideas over the past few weeks.  We had to do something drastic to ring in the new year.  2008 had to be special.

We sat around the fire outside melting candy canes in mugs of rich hot chocolate, roasting marshmallows and challenging each other to hold our feet closer to the flames for longer.  Sulking and plotting, each of us, until the critical hour.

In the meantime, one of us got the idea to burn the worst of 2007, and we Sharpied everything we wanted to leave behind onto logs and threw them into the fire with great ceremony, dancing and chanting like banshees.  Then each of us Sharpied onto another log our resolutions for 2008.  We each had long lists of very specific things to change for ourselves--but the one thing we all agreed on became our theme for the evening, and for the year: beNaked2008.

Bidding 2007 adieu

I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to carry out this tradition every year since.  It reminds me of the effigy-burning new years' tradition in Ecuador, my homeland, where people burn figures and pictures and other things to symbolize letting go of the past year.

Goodbye, 2008

We let the bonfire peter out and left our clothes inside the house, Maya and her cousin on the other side and her friend from school, and me, wearing only boots and sporting 2 flashlights, tiptoeing down the slippery patio stairs, through the horse pasture and 2 electric fences, along a rocky path down to the lake.

It was a clear night, and frigid.  Maya, of course, jumped in first, and the rest of us followed in waves.  I thought, "This must be what it felt like to be drowning on the Titanic."  (I would think that.)  The night air, after that, felt warm and soft in comparison.

We hurried, squealing, back to the house, wearing only boots and trying not to run into each other naked.  We had to count down to the new year five times because we had one bottle of champagne and none of us knew quite how to pop the cork...

But finally we cheered in the new year, and to make an already-too-long story a little bit shorter, I'll just say we spent the first several hours of 2008 in the nude.  (CUE FORESHADOWING.)

no photo

Now, the takeaway message here is not to glorify nudity for its own sake--so try not to get too excited--but symbolic nudity, and being comfortable in our own skins.  Being able to bare our true selves to really offer our best and our wholest, and be open to the best and wholest of the rest of the world as well.

All hail 2011!

This year I will sorely miss the traditional New Years' Bash in Ithaca with my Original Crew.  I will miss New Years' Eve in Hudson, WI, and those most wonderful [choir] bros.  (Also I will miss being one of 3 women honored to join the Great Sausagefest of 2010.)  I am not looking forward to hostessing on Saturday night, because we're slammed with reservations, and many large parties, from 4:00 to 8:00.  And that's just the beginning.  The party runs there until 1:00am.

But I should be out in time to do my own thing, and this year I plan to welcome the new year with the That's-What-She-Saiders, which should prove to be an all-around good time.  I definitely have some things I'd like to leave behind in 2011, and some things I plan to grab hold of on my way into 2012.  I think it could be time for another beNaked year, although the novelty of nudity has, for the most part, worn off--I could just use a refresher course in being myself, and being open and allowing myself to trust people.  To smile more, and say thanks more, and to say "I love you" more.  To try new things and meet new people, fearlessly and honestly.  To be at my best and wholest, my most daring and able and ready to take on the universe.