You are currently browsing the daily archive for January 1st, 2009.
Well, happy new year everybody. I rang in 2009 like everybody, with alcohol and a party. Although I wasn’t too far from it, I steered clear of Times Square; the party in Carytown in Richmond is crowded enough for me, and Times Square has to be, minimum, ten times the size of that. Instead, I was hoping to find a relatively quiet and sober place for to gather with my traveling companions Carl and Maria, and Ian my host, to commemorate a difficult twelve months and prepare for the coming onslaught of my post-graduate life.
Two or three days ago, Carl, Maria, Riccard and I gathered in a posh little bar called Banc and resolved to spend New Year’s there, as there was no cover charge. Subdued as the environment was, I expected it to remain somewhat similar even in the Manhattan chaos of December 31st, and this despite the stern warnings of Jesse, our waiter. We arrived early enogh to get a table, and the night began pleasantly, but I grew more and more disappointed the more and more happening it became. As the crowd grew, so did my frustration; it got hotter and louder until I could barely hear myself, and the standing-room-only crowd packed me into a corner. Unable to make decent conversation, I tried to pray.
I don’t like parties.
I don’t like parties because they prevent any sort of intercommunion besides dancing and merry-making, and as public a guy as I am, I can’t dance and hate loud music. I’m not trying to trample on parties as a bad thing of themselves ex officio, because part of man is the need to celebrate and commemorate. It’s a big part of why we have mass, for instance, and I’m down with that. It’s my own personal temperament; I prefer small gatherings to the Throngs of Millions, because in large gatherings, I honestly don’t know what to do with myself.
This party, though — I wondered why I was there, or if I should have been. I drank one drink the whole time, had no girl on my arm, even as the crowd about me danced and twirled and drank and kissed into the night. For the life of me, as the bass pounded in my head and made me nauseas, as everyone got drunker and louder, I couldn’t find God in that room. The music ground its way into the evening, and there was no room for the Spirit.
Again, this is all subjective.
As soon as the clock struck midnight, Ian and I retreated. I needed to get out of there and get someplace simpler, and the two of us — and Carl and Maria when they arrived — talked and listened to music until four in the morning. Ian and I did a bizarrely-timed Evening Prayer. I’m still no comfortable, though.
Perhaps, also, it’s simply the lack of time by myself I’ve had this past week, time to read and pray and reflect, because of the nature of the visit here. I’ve never been a comfortable guest, and without private and personal space, prayer becomes strained, difficult, and above all, self-conscious.
Today was the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and Ian and I caught the noon mass at St. Joseph’s, and have since spent most of the day watching Looney Toons. He’s off work for the first time since I got here, and we’re spending some needed time together. He’s one of my best friends, and it’s good to see him. I thank God for this.
Praise Him.
