"I could leave my loneliness behind with the old year."
It would be neat if with the New Year - Jimmy Santiago Baca | Not Champagne
The Poem
It would be neat if with the New Year - Jimmy Santiago Baca
for Miguel
It would be neat if with the New Year
I could leave my loneliness behind with the old year.
My leathery loneliness an old pair of work boots
my dog vigorously head-shakes back and forth in its jaws,
chews on for hours every day in my front yard—
rain, sun, snow, or wind
in bare feet, pondering my poem,
I’d look out my window and see that dirty pair of boots in the yard.
But my happiness depends so much on wearing those boots.
At the end of my day
while I’m in a chair listening to a Mexican corrido
I stare at my boots appreciating:
all the wrong roads we’ve taken, all the drug and whiskey houses
we’ve visited, and as the Mexican singer wails his pain,
I smile at my boots, understanding every note in his voice,
and strangers, when they see my boots rocking back and forth on my
feet
keeping beat to the song, see how
my boots are scuffed, tooth-marked, worn-soled.
I keep wearing them because they fit so good
and I need them, especially when I love so hard,
where I go up those boulder strewn trails,
where flowers crack rocks in their defiant love for the light.
The Beverage
Not Champagne
Don’t drink champagne. I am writing this pre-New Year’s Eve, sort of as a message from the future to myself, when really it’s a message from the past. Champagne tastes like my worst hangover. Even dry champagne gives me the sugary gut-rotting day-long headache. Just Say No.
I really recommend a clear soda and orange juice, though. I am sipping a lovely Diet Squirt/Simply Orange combo right now on Thursday night, prepping this newsletter, having been sick or kind-of sick for most of the holiday season. It’s a great beverage when you feel under the weather, and I just found out tonight that not everyone had a grandma who pushed it on them for years. 7-Up/Tropicana… Sprite/Minute Maid… You cannot go wrong.
Happy New Year. XOXO
[Update from New Year's Day: I drank champagne. I feel just awful.]