The New Thing

On the clown in my closet, nodding terms, and the headlong launch.

Over the holidays, I embarked on that childhood-home-storage-closet purge familiar to those whose parents were gracious but took you at your word when you said, “Just don’t throw or give anything away yet—I’ll look through it later.”

Among the cross country race participation ribbons and makeshift American Girl Doll outfits, I stumbled across some treasures: a CD mixed by friends as a gift before I headed to college, a math binder from seventh grade with “Mitch called me shawty…what does that mean?” penciled on the inside pocket, and my crowning fiction achievement: Grumpy Town, a fourth grade fever dream of a story about a clown named Todd who changes a kingdom and laughs his way into love.

Through a series of unfortunate events, some MFA classmates and professors have been subjected to Todd and Mandy’s story and, mercy of mercies, still find me acceptable company.

I’ll argue that a headlong launch into a new year feels most urgent when the contents of one’s early years are spread before her—beloved but bewildering fragments to sort through.

In Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Joan Didion writes,

...I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

When considering our past selves, we may be tempted to avert our gaze and get on over to the other side of the street. Didion’s imperative feels like a tough ask. But then, it’s nodding terms. Not tackle past-self-in-an-embrace terms. My intention, then, is to hold appropriate amounts of space for the old versions of Sarah that cross my path in this new year. Just enough space to ask, without judgement, what she might need to know or say. Like, These people are on your team, or Pin your bangs back, honey, or You have what it takes, or even Say yes.

version of Sarah, age 3-ish

Isaiah 43:18-19: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Previous iterations of our being may fall under “former things,” or they may be exactly the part of the New Thing the prophet urges us to witness. What springs forth will be familiar, I bet.

So in this new year, may we stay on nodding terms with those old selves, and clear a little space for the clowns in the closet. They might have something to say on our way in the wilderness.

Thank you for being here,

Sarah

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Eyes:

• Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Sonnets of Orpheus, translated by Stephen Mitchell

• The Butterfly’s Burden, Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian voice we need right now

• Anything by Christian Wiman I can get my hands on, but mostly My Bright Abyss

• How to Be an Adult in Relationships, David Richo

• Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly

Ears:

• “Orpheus” by Vincent Lima and “Greek Tragedy” by the Wombats - have to stay on the theme of turning back (or trying not to)

• “You’re Not Finished Yet” by the Belonging Co with Maggie Reed

• “The Starling” by the Well Pennies - do yourself a favor and listen to this on a winter walk

• Krista Tippett’s On Being interview with Christian Wiman