I am honestly fairly drained from the events of this month, although I have a certain sane spring in my step again (intentional alliteration). December was s’posed to be great, I thought, but it went a little bit pear-shaped for a confluence of reasons. That’s okay. It all ended up working out for the better, and sometimes–if you believe in this sort of thing–events occur because they’re meant to, because they result in something that you actually needed all along…even if the experience was torturous.

Once again, I prefer to sum it all up in a YouTube video that I recorded quite early this morning. I’m almost starting to prefer doing this to writing, becau–actually, that’s not true. Writing drives me up the wall, but once you’re in the zone, as we say, you’re lost, and the process is exhilarating, and time evaporates, and when you’re done, the feelings of satisfaction and adrenaline and pride overwhelm you so much, you have to walk it off (preferably to the grocery store for a hunk of red-velvet cake). Walking around parts of the city with my camera phone, recording nonstop and chatting off the top of my head is pretty satisfying, pretty fun, but it’s not really a creative or disciplined process.

Then again, does it have to be?

My narration takes second place to the spectacular area in which I filmed, and I hope you think of it that way too. This particular location is extremely special to me, because the place is so very special to me. I’ve written about it many times. I hesitated to do this little project for that very reason, thinking of it as perhaps a bit too sacred, a bit too personal, but then I thought to myself: Tourists come down here every summer by the barrelful, clogging it up, crowding it up, getting in my way (hmph!) and ruining it for me. The least I can do is share it with my readers.

And I generally do whatever I want, really.

So I hope you enjoy this one. I won’t be writing before 2026, so I absolutely want to wish all of you a glorious New Year. No, no, that’s not the right adjective. So trite, so meaningless. Let’s see…I want to wish all of you a stable, healthy, grounded, self-reflective, disciplined, content, forward-moving, and surprising-in-a-good-way New Year in which you learn to love yourself even more than I do.

Two things:

…and we can’t forget this guy, because his song seems to, surprisingly, fit the entire theme of this video, and it’s a rock-ass tune, and because Jack White makes me want to throw all of my panties into the garbage disposal and sit around, waiting for him to come home. To my place. In Vancouver. I’ll be waiting for a very, very long time.

Love

Nadya