It’s late on a cold and damp Wednesday night here in the Valley of the Sun. I have a nice glass of Chianti at my side as the Christmas tree provides a nice backdrop to a nice selection of CDs we have on shuffle mode: “New England Christmastide”, “A Victorian Christmas”, Esteban’s “What Child Is This?”, The Sandals’ “Milagro”, and “A String Quartet Christmas” – perfect for a night like this.

The music is of Christmas, but my thoughts are of this year with all of its highs and lows, and ups and downs – fortunately more of the former and less of the latter. So much has changed, yet much has remained the same. For good, for not so good. And as you get older, the years increasingly run together in season – springs run into springs, summers intersperse and overlap in their hot and hazy brilliance, while autumns somehow always maintain their vivid colors even while dying towards the dullness of winters past.

I think this is what Loreena McKennitt had in mind when she wrote her lovely song “The Seasons” (play selection #12 at this link) from her wonderful 1994 release “To Drive The Cold Winter Away”. Her lyrics are just as beautiful, wistful, and poignant as the music behind them:

Come all you lads and lasses, I’d have you give attention
To these few lines I’m about to write here,
‘Tis of the four seasons of the year that I shall mention,
The beauty of all things doth appear.
And now you are young and all in your prosperity,
Come cheer up your hearts and revive like the spring
Join off in pairs like the birds in February
St. Valentine’s Day it forth do bring.

Then cometh Spring, which all the land doth nourish;
The fields are beginning to be decked with green,
The trees put forth their buds and the blossoms they do flourish,
And the tender blades of corn on the earth are to be seen.
Don’t you see the little lambs by the dams a-playing?
The cuckoo is singing in the shady grove.
The flowers they are springing, the maids they go a-Maying,
In love all hearts seem now to move.

Next cometh Autumn with the sun so hot and piercing;
The sportsman goes forth with his dog and his gun
To fetch down the woodcock, the partridge and the pheasant,
For health and for profit as well as for fun.
Behold, with loaded apple-trees the farmer is befriended,
They will fill up his casks that have long laid dry.
All nature seems to weary now, her task is nearly ended,
And more of the seasons will come by and by.

When night comes on with song and tale we pass the wintry hours;
By keeping up a cheerful heart we hope for better days.
We tend the cattle, sow the seed, give work unto the ploughers,
With patience wait till winter yields before the sun’s fair rays.
And so the world goes round and round, and every time and season
With pleasure and with profit crowns the passage of the year,
And so through every time of life, to him who acts with reason,
The beauty of all things doth appear.

And so another year hurtles to its inevitable close, taking with it all of its security and memories – both fair and ill, soon to be discarded when yet another page is turned as yet another year takes its place in life’s unfinished novel. For yours truly the uncertainty of what a New Year proposes and promises over its coming twelve months have always been met with no small amount of unease, disconcert, and yes, even fear – but what else can you do but turn that page emotionally and embrace the new, even while longing for the safety and permanence of the past?