The year has changed, and with it my title, department, and work focus. I manage people now, thinking hard on culture, tone, personality, learning styles, etc., etc., concerning myself with the refinement of the subtle influence that these [many] nuances have on improvement, performance, quality, growth.

I ran all twenty-six and point two miles of the New York City marathon. They were long enough ago that the pain they throbbed through my legs is no longer my first memory of them.

The holidays came and went, and so did the intermittent winter-like-weather. Yesterday, my bike ride to work felt like spring; today, my hair froze into cinnamon-bun-Princess-Leia-sized clumps after just the first few blocks of my commute.

I have heard of people dying and others being born – some close to those I am close to, others strangers that my mother knows. I now have a niece. And a centenarian grandmother. I select sympathy cards and small birthday gifts with equal care.

I am training my dog to run beside me along East River paths. Seeing him turn back at my call, his little white body rapt with both attention and mischief, makes these dark nights brighter.

I have written things. Most of my written words mark class deadlines and applications either accepted or pending, none of which make sense to post here or now. I am never not wanting to write more, always, with discipline, relentlessly, but I have become familiar with the reality of my own energy supply and current obligations, and so I am learning to focus on deadlines and progressive progress, slow and even, like a percolator’s drip.

Time has passed, and continues passing. Sometimes it seems quick, until I look at the plants, and see that they’ve only changed a little, which makes me remember that in the entire expanse of time and space, these days are small – only 30ish in one month, three hundred and change in a year – and that the still, small, slowness that I am beginning to feel in this new year, like a dog lowering itself to the floor to watch and doze, is actually normalcy, representative of a pace I should relish and cultivate, return to and cherish.