January

my A to Z - every day of the challenge I will find a word by flinging my finger into my American Heritage Dictionary and then riff on it. The posts may be essays or poems or stories or memories. Who knows what will happen when we give Serendipity her wanton way?

January as described by Janus and transcribed by Jan

I am not two-faced and am frankly sick of all of you saying that about me. I have two faces that is true - one facing the past and one the future. That is significantly different than being called two-faced however. I hope you recognize the subtlety. I am the god of thresholds, of gates, of doorways. If you think of it that is precisely why the newest month of the year is named after me - I stand in the doorway of the past and the future. Some might call me 'the now'. Yes, the now. We are always on that threshold are we not? We long for the future or are frightened of the future - we are nostalgic for the past or are glad to have escaped it.

Let us look at January - it doesn't matter a whit to me if you are of the northern or southern persuasion - January is still the beginning of the calendar that most of us use.

But beginning when it is all so round, so circular, so never-ending - well threshold between the past year and the future year is simply a better way to look at it. Time is after all not linear. I have a friend by the name of Malc who believes that time happens all at once but we can't stand that so we sort it into past, present and future. That could be true. The Jan who is transcribing this is as we speak sitting on the beach in Florida but appears to have just written this! I am not only long dead but I never was and as for January, she comes around every so often and we're glad of it.

Enough! I've got to stand here - in this gateway between yesterday and tomorrow and I have to look in both directions while I do so. I can't be jabbering to you. Be gone!