Tag: year

• December 31, 2017

  Full Circle: 2017 Year in Review

  

  Earlier this year, we were in Glasgow, Scotland at the Kelvingrove Museum. In one of the upstairs rooms, I remember being captivated by an antique orrery, a mechanical model of the solar system. Built by a Scottish cobbler in 1833, the orrery has 200 moving parts and simulates the movement of the planets as they were known in the 19th century. I lingered near the exhibit for a long time, taking photos of it before moving on.

  Now, seven months later, on the very last night of the year, I find myself thinking about the orrery again. Like the brass gears moving miniature planets in neat, circular orbits, the year 2017 has taken me full circle — both physically and mentally.

  Some things haven’t changed. I’m still struggling to find the time and motivation to write. Blog topics come infrequently. The novel manuscript I planned to complete this year stalled out. My stage play was rejected from every festival I submitted to.

  And yet, some things are radically different. I took a chance and applied for a new job where I work. I stood on the sacred Isle of Iona and sat among ruins a thousand years old. I watched the Moon nearly blot out the Sun. I rode a cable car in San Francisco and hiked to an emerald green pool in Zion Canyon. I finished a short story that’s plagued me for five years and got it published in Creative Colloquy Volume 4. I’ve spent lazy summer afternoons reading with my soulmate, baked a blackberry pie from scratch and seen many of my closest friends — even those living four states away.

  Our lives are made up of these little cycles. Days. Weeks. Months. Seasons. Orbits around the Sun. Much of it is repetition. We wake, we eat, we go to work, we sleep and we repeat the process. It’s not all bad. Habits help ground us. And without the mundane, how could we recognize the extraordinary? If it wasn’t for all of the overcast days, I probably wouldn’t take so much pleasure in a beautiful, sunny day.

  Here, on the cusp of the new year, I look forward to coming full circle in 2018 and seeing the brilliance among the ordinary. I hope you see it, too.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and traveler based in Tacoma, WA. His latest short story, The Disappeared, appears in Creative Colloquy Vol. 4 and can be found at King’s Books in Tacoma. Follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his monthly newsletter for exclusive content and recommended reads.
• December 31, 2014

  The Plunge

  

  All too often in my life, I wade into unfamiliar water. I gingerly stick in a toe and inch my way in. It’s an agonizing way to get wet. And it isn’t just a problem in literal water. When it comes to change, I can be slow to jump in the deep end. But not this year. This year, I took the plunge.

  Twenty fourteen was the year I jumped in with both feet. After moving from Arizona to Washington last year, I was timid. Moving was hard and I wasn’t able to get reliable, full-time work. 2013 ended in a rut and the early months of 2014 didn’t look promising. But things were looking up as the early days of summer brought sunlight to the dark northern latitudes.

  This summer, I got engaged to an amazing woman; I snared an excellent job; I published a short story; I moved into an insulated; mouse-free home and I built new friendships. I decided to take the plunge — into marriage, into a stalled job search, into my creative work — and it paid off. I could’ve gotten here by slowly tip-toeing my way into the water, but that route might have taken years. It wasn’t all easy, but the struggle was worth it.

  Life is about taking risks. It’s about jumping in even though the water might be cold. 2014 was the year I put aside my overly cautious inclinations. This was the year I jumped into the deep end. Let me tell you, the water’s fine.

  — 30 —

  Thank you for reading and following along with the ups and downs of this past year. What will you take away from your experiences this year? Let me know in the comments. Happy New Year!
• December 31, 2012

  The Year In Focus

  

  When you’re developing film by hand, you always print a contact sheet — a single print of all of the negatives on your roll of film. Every shot is laid out in neat rows, side by side for comparison. You can see which photos are correctly exposed, composed and lit and which ones you should throw away.

  When I look back on the year 2012, it’s as if I’m looking at the contact sheet from a roll of 35mm film. Some of the memories are crisp and clear, like the week I spent in Guatemala in March or my work on the Gathering in New Orleans this past July. Some are blurry, like my last semester of college. Some are long exposures that leave long trails of light in their wake where so many images overlap and crowd into the same small space, like the time I’ve spent with my girlfriend, Stephanie.

  Like a roll of film tucked into the dark recesses of a camera, you don’t know how a year will turn out until it’s over. Only in retrospect can we see the obvious — that we ignored an opportunity we should’ve lept at, that we lingered too long, that we didn’t wait long enough. And occasionally (but so rarely), that we were at the exact right angle with exactly the right aperture and exactly the right shutter speed to capture exactly the right shot.

  You never know how things will develop until you’re in the darkroom, long after the moment is captured on tiny grains of silver halide crystal…or after the moment has slipped through your fingers. The exposures on a roll of film are finite, you only get 12 or 24 shots and once you’ve pressed the shutter button, there is no changing them.

  Life is the same way. But that doesn’t mean that you should hoard undeveloped film. You have to risk taking the shot. Maybe it won’t be in focus. That’s okay. You can learn from that. But if you never load the film into the camera, if you never risk a bad photograph or an unpleasant memory, you’ll never have a chance at a beautiful memory.

  I took risks this year and now it’s all coming into focus. I hope you did, too.

  Happy New Year!

  — 30 —

  Thanks for reading this year! I’ll be back in 2013 with more of my signature wit and feats of linguistic prowess. Until then, please comment, share and follow me on Twitter: @jonnyeberle.

  Top Posts of 2012:
  Guatemala Through the Rear View Mirror
  An Examined Life: In Memory of Dr. Joel Olson
  An Open Letter to Sherlock Holmes