Life As Collage

Happy New Year.

It feels like a funny phrase, “Happy New Year.”

It’s a wish, I suppose, for good things.

It’s a peek outside of the doubts and droughts, I suppose, that are so real yet feel nice to leave behind for a moment, or for a cup of coffee.

It’s a courtesy, I suppose. Yup, I like the courtesy. Some leaning in, sometimes consciously, with a bit of invocation. Happiness. And beauty. And kindness. And flow. And some of the other emotional cousins that live nearby.

Somewhere along the way in 2024, I had a seemingly small, but actually big aha. It was that I think in collages. Collages in discussions. Collages in plans. In designs. In conversations with loved ones. Collages in dreaming the day and the night. Or the week. Or the year. In dwelling with the difficulties. Of the day, the night, the week, the year.

Collages include. They are also rather imperfect. They are rather incomplete. Collages create a relationship between things. A connection between things. An association. A spatial awareness. I love all of that.

Because, well, life is so much moving, dynamic, and fluid. I’ve long sought to hold the certainty of life. The dots connected. The imposed linearity of charts. But real life, the one that I so love exploring, is so much more fluid than that. It behooves us humans, right, to get more comfortable with things chaotic and dynamic. With order that is short-lived. Or with order that is constant, but only in the biggest of pictures.

Happy New Year.

It’s a hope. For connection. For learning. For loving. For living. For surprise. For delight. For attention to those things that are happening all of the time anyway. Collaged. Sometimes for the depth. Sometimes for the whimsy.

The above collage of recent photos delights me on this January 2nd day.

• Our cat Marmalade loves to cuddle in the closet. On top of Dana’s clothes. It’s Marmalade’s private space. Particularly when we have dogs visiting. It’s kind of endearing. I like endearing somewhere in today’s collage. And wish it for others.
• The seagulls sometimes gather on the dock at Oquirrh Lake. And poop all over the dock. But something about seeing their colors with the similar colors of winter. It’s beautiful. I want palette and color in my collage of life today. And wish it for others.
• The stature of the child holding a dandelion is nearby trail art. It’s called “Dancing With A Dream” by Elizabeth Carter. Yes please. I love the whimsy and think whimsy feels like a good strategic plan today and this year. I wish that for others too.
• More sky. Dried miniature crab-apples on trees where Dana and I walk. Again, something about open sky. I love vista. I love the spacious and unplanned. I want that in my collage of Happy New Year. I want that for others too.
• And then loved ones. What a fun Xmas afternoon. Dana and I hosted family. Friends. Blends of family and friends. Dogs (with cat in the closet). What delight. What momentary delight. What lasting delight. An afternoon of joy. And gifts. And games. And a meal. I want that in my collage. And wish it for others. And delight in such joy and celebration, even when, yes, so much trouble stirs and vortexes in the world.

So I wish for many what I wish for myself. The practice and orientation of collaging. Physical if needed (my walls often have a lot of post-it notes on them — phrases and tiny drawings). And emotional collages. That exist in the heart and brain. Or even in the knee cap.

Hey, Happy New Year.

Offered with love.