Delivering Baby New Year

Happy New Year!
Is there a doctor in the house?

I must say I was perfectly content with the absence of any sort of traditional, enthusiastic celebration of the arrival of the new year at the stroke of 12 o’clock midnight. Staying in my sweats and sitting with my family while we tried (and mostly failed) to find something festive to watch on tv, instead of launching our usual family dance party, was a fitting way to greet 2021. (Actually, I turned in at 10:30 pm:)

Brushing my hair, putting on makeup or wearing anything shiny would have felt phony and forced not to mention a completely false representation of the year as whole. It’s certainly no way to greet a doctor at the door, which is how I see the role of 2021.
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Sure, sure—I realize that some who were celebrating were embracing the new year and any hope it may offer—not celebrating the past year—but welcoming 2021 feels less like opening the door to a surprise birthday party and more like the ushering in of a doctor on house call who has just arrived by horse and buggy in the dark to examine the situation and try to save a patient who has deteriorated rapidly.

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​There’s whispered, hushed relief at the arrival of our only hope and a collective, anticipatory glance in the direction of the ailing patient as we usher the doctor forward unsure if it’s too late or if by some miracle there is something—anything—that can still be done.

Cut back to the kitchen scene set with praying, some pacing, tears of fear and hope silently collecting, but held back. The waiting, listening, clenching.

That’s what I felt and of course I am picturing Doc Baker from Little House on the Prairie showing up to Ma and Pa Ingalls’s cabin or Dr. Clarkson from Downton Abbey as he ascends that grand abbey staircase bound for one of its bedrooms.

Hopefully this new year has some medical background or at least a stethoscope around its neck to put me—even superficially—at ease.
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As for my part, I am just going to stand back and let the good Dr. New Year work and hope that health and sanity can be restored, then look forward to whoopin’ it up next December 31st.

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