Diary of an Opera Singer: Rest
Rhoslyn Jones
January 2, 2023
Starting a new year in January has always felt strange to me because it’s in the middle of my favorite season. The birds and bees are nestled in their cozy homes and hives and we’re out here making resolutions we cannot possibly sustain about cutting calories and financial fasting.
For me, it’s a time of extended hibernation, slow-cooking my intentions, quiet daydreaming, and holding gently to the ease and comfort of rest. Even here in California, where the temperature could be the same on Christmas Day as it is on the Fourth of July, I feel the pull of my internal seasons. It feels against the grain of the wood, but I don’t mind the discomfort of its splintering.
Why isn’t the new year in the spring? The trees, flowers, and breezes gently beckon the birds and bees from their slumber and the feeling of all things new wafts and buzzes in the air. I will sneeze no fewer than four-thousand times a day and jolt myself awake and move forward with momentum that can only be built after meaningful silence and stillness.
I need the darkness before the dawn, and I am not quite ready for that lacerating alarm of the sunrise. The popular and collective fresh start feeling of New Year’s Day is something I reject and recoil from and it’s likely the reason I hate resolutions.
Imagine moving into 2023 and your resolution is to lose weight. How boring. What a waste of energy and time. How very 2002 of you. You’ve survived a global pandemic, atmospheric rivers, forest fires, a racist burnt Cheeto President, the death of Betty White, murder hornets, Christmas with your in-laws, and you’re telling me your resolution is to spend your precious life making your flesh suit smaller?
LAME. Be better. Go lie down. It’s winter.
