For many years now Tara has done the Polar Bear Challenge, that of course being the thing where a bunch of people all jump in the ocean on January 1st and freeze their asses off to prove they can do it. No hate of course, I appreciate the intention of doing something challenging to mark the passing of time and new beginnings but that particular execution has never held any appeal to me, so for these last many years my ritual has been to join her for moral support, take photos, and hold her towel.
This year she decided not to do it, not so much because it sucks but more of a feeling that redoing the thing you’ve already done many times just to prove you can do it isn’t the same sense of accomplishment as doing a thing you’ve never done before and aren’t sure if you can pull off, mixed with wanting to do something that involves all of us rather than just her, with us playing spectators. So we went snowshoeing on a nearby local mountain and had some hot cider at the lodge. Highly recommended.
This got me thinking about my own personal history with New Years (eve/day) and what if any rituals I’ve had along the way. As it turns out I’ve had a few! Perhaps interestingly though also perhaps obviously, what those were often related to where I was. Here’s a rundown.
A fairly common hobby for kids growing up in Florida, as you might imagine, is finding new and exciting ways to blow things up. This of course made New Years (and to a lesser extent 4th of July) almost holy days. All year long any road trip out of state would very intentionally route through Tennessee. They sold the good fireworks all year round there so we were always in stock pile mode and would often take orders from friends and come back with a carload of exciting munitions. Which would then be stored, probably unsafely, in a box in the closet until one of these dates rolled around and it would be all out war with friends and neighbors. I have many a scar from a roman candle direct hit. Surviving was the desired outcome, and if you were not in the hospital come Jan 1st that was a win you carried with you all year.
After I moved to Chicago things got more civilized and respectable. Rather that firing shit off at each other we’d find a building with roof access and unload our stockpiles there, straight up. As would everyone else in the neighborhood so you’d build some camaraderie by trying to out do whoever was on a building a few blocks away. This gave us the green light to buy the really crazy stuff because we weren’t firing it directly at another human, so all good right? I don’t even want to think of the fire codes that were violated, and I’m really missing the aftermath photos I took at the time and probably have in some box of prints in storage somewhere. One year Jon Resh had the idea to stay up all night and make our way to the Lake Michigan waterfront, boom box in tow, and blast “New Day Rising” by Hüsker Dü from a cassette as the sun rose over the water for the first day of the year. It was legit addition to the practice.
Los Angeles had its fair share of fireworks which I always enjoyed but rarely took a direct role in. My favorite way to experience them was to find some high vantage point, often the top floor of some parking garage, and have a 360 view of all the different neighborhoods setting things off. As for events, more often than not I’d find myself visiting friends who might have been having people over. Thinking back people were pretty good about having either early things which would end by 10pm or later things which revolved around the stroke of midnight so you could easily visit two parties in one night and not feel like you’d missed something at one. I say parties and sometimes they were, but I think they were also usually just a handful of friends hanging out in a living room with with wine whatever. I didn’t drink so never knew or cared. That was very grown up, and some people even wore suits.
Los Angeles also had lots of people who spent the week before new years warning about the inevitable local fireworks, and the week after complaining about them. I understand their positions and arguments and don’t really think it’s worth debating one way or the other. Whatever it was about my childhood, filled with chaos I couldn’t predict or control, being around this stuff has always been oddly peaceful and reassuring for me, it’s my briar patch I guess. Kind of a funny contradiction.
Sometime in the mid 2000’s I found myself in Berlin for New Years and it was the most unhinged chaos I’ve ever experienced. The whole city exploded. Firework smoke so think you could barely see the people standing next to you and no chance of seeing what was happening at the end of the block. People were firing things out of apartment windows into the streets and people were throwing bottles around. Cops were everywhere, and didn’t really seem to give a shit one way or the other. It was pandamonium and I loved every second of it. The next day, still in shock, my local friends explained to me that there was nothing unusual about that at all, and it was just a standard New Years in their experience. I made it a point to be in Berlin every Dec 31st for the next 4-5 years. No mater what. If I had a reason or opportunity, I’d be there again in a heart beat.
After moving to Japan we wasn’t as ballistic but no powerful. Every year, along with a few thousand strangers, we’d set out in the freezing cold darkness of 4am to catch the first train out to Mt Takao, which we’d climb in the dark finally reaching the Shinto shrine on top. There we’d wait, and usually shiver, as the crowd grew until we all watched the first sunrise of the new year through the tori gate. It was pretty wonderful and moving on a whole other level. Dead quiet as opposed to the explosions I’d grown up with, but it felt important. After the sun came up the monks and venders would hand out sake and dango and we’d make our way back to the city feeling refreshed and ready for the new year.
We loved this tradition and would drag friends along when possible, and even after moving to Canada tried to get back there for New Years a couple times. Scheduling and everything else makes that easier said than done, but this is absolutely something that I would do every year given the opportunity.
Today’s walk in the snowy woods similarly quiet and spending time with the family in nature is never not awesome. Hot cider was a bonus. I don’t know what this year will bring, or where we’ll find ourselves this time next year, but I also think right now that doesn’t matter. It’s not so much about doing the same thing, as it as about doing something. Making the time to do a thing, in silence or in chaos, to be completely in the moment. It’s worth it, and good way to reflect on what got you there, and where you might go next.
Unintentionally, this one from Sense Field played in the car while we were driving and it struck me as a, slightly less on the nose but oddly appropriate song for New Years, so I thought I’d leave it with you.