Twenty Twenty Four
Belatedly ringing in the New Year
Two Favorite Scenes From The End of Last Year
The air is brisk as my grandfather and I ease out of his truck on to a dark backroad. With the snick of two rifle bolts we are ready to go, and we walk silently down the path towards and then through a strip of pine and oak.
At the end of the path we emerge into an open field. The sky is very dark in the empty plot near Graceville, Florida, but the stars are bright as a square shadow looms in front of us. The deer stand creaks a little bit as we quietly ascend its steps and enter. With two coats on to ward off the December chill and my gun snugly placed on the window ledge, we settle in to watch and wait.
It isn’t quite as cold as yesterday, but the deer still make no entrance to our field. My uncle who is in a stand in the neighboring field texts us that he saw a small group of deer wandering off just before dawn, but is unable to get a good view or tell if one is a buck legal to shoot. Quiet though we are and tantalizing as the rye plot may be, no deer have shown any interest in our field. Perhaps they knew I was coming and split for Dothan, I think with a smile.
We wait, and continue to wait. Distant dogs bark. I drum my fingers on the windowsill. A shot rings out miles distant; perhaps from someone luckier than us. Birds flit by, and to amuse myself I follow them with my scope, as if to shoot them with a .30-06 wouldn’t instantly turn them into a small puff of feathers in the wind.
I check the news on my phone; its depressing, so I put it away. My thoughts drift. They meander about the halls of memory in my mind, flipping though scenes and emotions from 2023, as if they are looking for the right record to play, or the correct Netflix show to fall asleep to.
My thoughts are interrupted by a snore from my grandfather, which makes me smile. My gaze focuses on a speck of movement for a moment, but with no followup to indicate that it was a deer, I relax.
Eventually, the sun rises high and we depart.
You win this one, Mister Whitetail.
Later that day, the sun was a glowing mandarin, shedding its final rays through slits in a marshmallow sky while, sliding into a rippling foamy sea. The power of the ocean was not absent, but his appetite was sated and he slumbered in the cool winter calm.
I walked along Crooked Island Beach, barefoot, my jeans rolled above my knees. There are few sensations as pleasurable as bare feet in wet sand. The cold did not diminish it—indeed, it sharpened it, placing it in league with the exhalation that turns to fog on a cold day, or the cold water that goes down a parched throat.
My head was down initially as I paced the shoreline. Empty seashells abounded, the homes of deceased mollusks and crustaceans, fixer-uppers without a FOR SALE or FOR RENT sign, and I felt a childlike urge to snatch the choicest of them up.
But I eventually turned to linger, full of thought, on the golden horizon.
It was the evening after Christmas.
I am close to three weeks late, but well-wishes are better late than never at all; so to you, my small circle of readers, I wish a joyful New Year.
As 2024 has begun, I’ve struggled to distill any one train of thought into something coherent (for myself, much less for others) to read. I’ve had many patterns of thought swirling about my brain for some time now and it is difficult to sort through them all. Nostalgia, lessons hard-learned, and missed opportunities of the past year (and much further) pursue me. In the present, I am restless as I struggle to gradually let go of the past; I am not yet shed of who I was, but I have not yet attained to what I want to be. As for the future, it is clouded and uncertain, full of perilous doom and potential delight. The wide world outside my window is darkening, and times are becoming harder. There is a need for strong men and women who can fight the right kinds of spiritual and societal (and maybe physical) battles to preserve that which is with preserving. There is a need to understand the time we are living in.
I have to add that this acute sense of personal and wider history is accompanied by joy; in fact, I embrace this consciousness (especially in regards to the future) as a good problem to have. It’s important for a responsible human being, especially for a man, to contemplate the past, the future, the present, and work towards staking out and defending his place in the world. Furthermore, one of the main reasons I started this Substack is to communicate ideas better through writing, and wrestling my disorderly whims and emotions into sound and articulate ideas is a necessary step in that process; so my writing and my internal conversation are in a symbiotic relationship, and I hope that both will be greatly refined this year.
Augustine once said, “Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: such as we are, such are the times.” I made WE ARE THE TIMES the title of my newsletter because it points to that which will sustain us going through the next period of rough sailing on the Sea of Time: who and what you are, and whether or not you “live well,” will determine how this period of life looks like for you and for us all, regardless of outside circumstances. It is inspiring; it is a call to be better, to grow, to fight, to live even in a time and among a culture that seeks to do away with true living.
So, bear with me as I wrangle my thoughts. Together we will explore the past, present and future, and the right response to the times we live in, thinking aloud (or on electronic screen) with those of you willing to listen or read along. To those that humor me and follow along, you have my sincere thanks. Interspersed with these sorts of self-reflective musings will be book reviews, short stories, and other monotony-breaking bits of publication.
I am late to the game and a little behind on my 2024 writing goal; but I believe I know where to start. Stay tuned.
I am a college student, an EMT, and Northern California native intent on improving my writing skills. I’ll gladly consider all feedback, which you can direct to my email. You can also find me on Instagram @tduncanr and Twitter/X @tduncanr327