14 days: First day of the New Year

What is is about New Years, of any tradition, that I leap on so eagerly?

Beginnings - even just the ones we create with fictional lines drawn in the fictional concept of time - are shots of energy. Infusions of hope. The words Saal Mubarak are a magic invocation for me. They conjure up childhood New Year's Days, dressing up, driving all over Nairobi to visit friends, giving and receiving sweets. Opening all the doors and windows at midnight, when the New Year begins, to welcome Lakshmi-devi in.

Today, the New Year is a chance to reconnect with all threads that have fed into and spun out of Migritude in the past year. To consider her journey in the year to come.

I'm struggling with exhaustion, compromised immune system, and countdown-to-premiere overwhelm. However, when I sit still, breathe deeply, and allow myself to simply be with things as they are right now, I see the extraordinary creative entity that so many people besides me have brought into being. How rich and funny she is. How heartbreaking and piercing; how strong and in-your-face; how out-there, razor-edged, lovely, uncompromising. How fiercely, seductively glorious, is this child, born of a collaborative community of creative, practical, strategic, material DNAs. I am so proud of her. Of us. So grateful for the brilliance and generosity that dozens of people have poured into her.

To paraphrase e.e. cummings: I carry your migritudes; I carry them in my migritude.

May the Vyaya year, 5107, that begins today, be filled with richness and ever-expanding largeness for us all.